AUTHOR=Hansen Mikkel B. TITLE=If You Know Something, Say Something: Young Children's Problem with False Beliefs JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology VOLUME=1 YEAR=2010 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00023 DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00023 ISSN=1664-1078 ABSTRACT=

Whether young children understand that others may hold false beliefs is a hotly debated topic in psychology and neuroscience. Much evidence suggests that children do not pass this milestone in their understanding of other people until the age of 5 years. Other evidence suggests that they understand already in their second year. This study proposes a novel account of the logic of conversations about certain mental states. By modifying the discourse accordingly, children passed three false belief tasks at 3 years of age while they failed standard false belief tasks. The results support the view that even young children construe other people in adult-like psychological terms.