Do 18-month-olds really attribute mental states to others? A critical test
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Do 18-month-olds really attribute mental states to others? A critical test. / Senju, Atsushi; Southgate, Victoria; Snape, Charlotte; Leonard, Mark; Csibra, Gergely.
In: Psychological Science, Vol. 22, No. 7, 01.07.2011, p. 878-880.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Do 18-month-olds really attribute mental states to others?
T2 - A critical test
AU - Senju, Atsushi
AU - Southgate, Victoria
AU - Snape, Charlotte
AU - Leonard, Mark
AU - Csibra, Gergely
PY - 2011/7/1
Y1 - 2011/7/1
N2 - In the research reported here, we investigated whether 18-month-olds would use their own past experience of visual access to attribute perception and consequent beliefs to other people. Infants in this study wore either opaque blindfolds (opaque condition) or trick blindfolds that looked opaque but were actually transparent (trick condition). Then both groups of infants observed an actor wearing one of the same blindfolds that they themselves had experienced, while a puppet removed an object from its location. Anticipatory eye movements revealed that infants who had experienced opaque blindfolds expected the actor to behave in accordance with a false belief about the object's location, but that infants who had experienced trick blindfolds did not exhibit that expectation. Our results suggest that 18-month-olds used self-experience with the blindfolds to assess the actor's visual access and to update her belief state accordingly. These data constitute compelling evidence that 18-month-olds infer perceptual access and appreciate its causal role in altering the epistemic states of other people.
AB - In the research reported here, we investigated whether 18-month-olds would use their own past experience of visual access to attribute perception and consequent beliefs to other people. Infants in this study wore either opaque blindfolds (opaque condition) or trick blindfolds that looked opaque but were actually transparent (trick condition). Then both groups of infants observed an actor wearing one of the same blindfolds that they themselves had experienced, while a puppet removed an object from its location. Anticipatory eye movements revealed that infants who had experienced opaque blindfolds expected the actor to behave in accordance with a false belief about the object's location, but that infants who had experienced trick blindfolds did not exhibit that expectation. Our results suggest that 18-month-olds used self-experience with the blindfolds to assess the actor's visual access and to update her belief state accordingly. These data constitute compelling evidence that 18-month-olds infer perceptual access and appreciate its causal role in altering the epistemic states of other people.
KW - eye tracking
KW - infants
KW - social cognition
KW - theory of mind
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=79960441289&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0956797611411584
DO - 10.1177/0956797611411584
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 21642553
AN - SCOPUS:79960441289
VL - 22
SP - 878
EP - 880
JO - Psychological Science
JF - Psychological Science
SN - 0956-7976
IS - 7
ER -
ID: 212910856