title: Statistical learning as a basis for social understanding in children.
abstract: Many authors have argued that infants understand goals, intentions, and beliefs. We posit that infants' success on such tasks might instead reveal an understanding of behaviour, that infants' proficient statistical learning abilities might enable such insights, and that maternal talk scaffolds children's learning about the social world as well. We also consider which skills and insights are likely to be innate, and why it is difficult to say exactly when children understand mental states as opposed to behaviours.
authors.affiliation: University of Otago, New Zealand. tedr@psy.otago.ac.nz
authors.forename: Ted
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ruffman
authors.forename: Mele
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Taumoepeau
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Perkins
mesh_terms: D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D032882:Comprehension; D003469:Culture; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D033182:Intention; D007858:Learning; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology; D012919:Social Behavior; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D056345:Theory of Mind