The role of belief veracity in understanding intentions-in-action: preschool children's performance on the transparent intentions task

Russell, James, Hill, Elisabeth L. and Franco, Fabia ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1327-1080 (2001) The role of belief veracity in understanding intentions-in-action: preschool children's performance on the transparent intentions task. Cognitive Development, 16 (3) . pp. 775-792. ISSN 0885-2014 [Article] (doi:10.1016/S0885-2014(01)00057-0)

Abstract

It is possible to have either true or false beliefs about what one is currently doing (an ‘intention-in-action’; [Searle, J. R. (1983). Intentionality: an essay in the philosophy of mind. New York: Cambridge University Press.]). The theory-theory account of the development of ‘mentalising’ skills between 3 and 4 years of age predicts that younger children should find false intentions-in-action more difficult to report than true intentions-in-action. In contrast, an executive theory of development at 3 and 4 years of age would predict that the perceived outcome of the action at the time of questioning should determine the younger child's answer, with the truth-value of the past belief playing no role. We presented 3- and 4-year-old children with a novel drawing task—the transparent intentions task—in order to pit these two accounts against each other. The truth-value of the child's (or a puppet's) intention-in-action played no role in performance. Incorrect answers referred to the unexpected final outcome of the drawing. This result supports the executive theory.

Actions (login required)

View Item

Statistics

Downloads

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Activity Overview

0Downloads

477Hits

Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.