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Children's understanding of first- and third-person perspectives in complement clauses and false-belief tasks.

Publication ,  Journal Article
Brandt, S; Buttelmann, D; Lieven, E; Tomasello, M
Published in: Journal of experimental child psychology
November 2016

De Villiers (Lingua, 2007, Vol. 117, pp. 1858-1878) and others have claimed that children come to understand false belief as they acquire linguistic constructions for representing a proposition and the speaker's epistemic attitude toward that proposition. In the current study, English-speaking children of 3 and 4years of age (N=64) were asked to interpret propositional attitude constructions with a first- or third-person subject of the propositional attitude (e.g., "I think the sticker is in the red box" or "The cow thinks the sticker is in the red box", respectively). They were also assessed for an understanding of their own and others' false beliefs. We found that 4-year-olds showed a better understanding of both third-person propositional attitude constructions and false belief than their younger peers. No significant developmental differences were found for first-person propositional attitude constructions. The older children also showed a better understanding of their own false beliefs than of others' false beliefs. In addition, regression analyses suggest that the older children's comprehension of their own false beliefs was mainly related to their understanding of third-person propositional attitude constructions. These results indicate that we need to take a closer look at the propositional attitude constructions that are supposed to support children's false-belief reasoning. Children may come to understand their own and others' beliefs in different ways, and this may affect both their use and understanding of propositional attitude constructions and their performance in various types of false-belief tasks.

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Published In

Journal of experimental child psychology

DOI

EISSN

1096-0457

ISSN

0022-0965

Publication Date

November 2016

Volume

151

Start / End Page

131 / 143

Related Subject Headings

  • Semantics
  • Male
  • Language Development
  • Language
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Concept Formation
  • Comprehension
  • Child, Preschool
 

Citation

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Brandt, S., Buttelmann, D., Lieven, E., & Tomasello, M. (2016). Children's understanding of first- and third-person perspectives in complement clauses and false-belief tasks. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 151, 131–143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.03.004
Brandt, Silke, David Buttelmann, Elena Lieven, and Michael Tomasello. “Children's understanding of first- and third-person perspectives in complement clauses and false-belief tasks.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 151 (November 2016): 131–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2016.03.004.
Brandt S, Buttelmann D, Lieven E, Tomasello M. Children's understanding of first- and third-person perspectives in complement clauses and false-belief tasks. Journal of experimental child psychology. 2016 Nov;151:131–43.
Brandt, Silke, et al. “Children's understanding of first- and third-person perspectives in complement clauses and false-belief tasks.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, vol. 151, Nov. 2016, pp. 131–43. Epmc, doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2016.03.004.
Brandt S, Buttelmann D, Lieven E, Tomasello M. Children's understanding of first- and third-person perspectives in complement clauses and false-belief tasks. Journal of experimental child psychology. 2016 Nov;151:131–143.
Journal cover image

Published In

Journal of experimental child psychology

DOI

EISSN

1096-0457

ISSN

0022-0965

Publication Date

November 2016

Volume

151

Start / End Page

131 / 143

Related Subject Headings

  • Semantics
  • Male
  • Language Development
  • Language
  • Humans
  • Female
  • Experimental Psychology
  • Concept Formation
  • Comprehension
  • Child, Preschool