What a Child Already Knows About Thoughts

Child, 15th–16th century — Child, Pierino da Vinci, 15th–16th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access (CC0).

A child watches a toy go into a basket. A second child leaves the room. The toy moves to a box. The question is asked: where will the second child look? A thought has to be built before the answer comes: she thinks it is still in the basket. KTT counts that as a thought, and the ability to build it as the first knowledge a child has about thoughts. Research studies it as the understanding of mental states. The studies read for this article did not test what a young child’s own thoughts are like.

The task

This kind of task is called a false-belief task. A child has to hold two things apart: what is true, and what another person believes. Until a certain age, many children say the second child will look where the toy really is.

The age

In 2001, Henry Wellman, David Cross and Julanne Watson combined 178 studies. Children’s performance on false-belief tasks improved between about 3 and 5 years of age, and a model with age, country of origin and four task factors accounted for 55 percent of the differences between results. Task details mattered, for example whether objects were changed to deceive the character.

In 2005, Tara Callaghan and colleagues used one standard procedure in five cultures: Canada, India, Peru, Samoa and Thailand. Children crossed the false-belief milestone at about 5 years in every culture studied. A later preliminary report with Indian children found above-chance performance only from 6 to 7 years. So the timing is not settled, and procedures differ.

The order

False belief is only one step. Researchers describe a sequence: children first understand that people want different things, then that they may hold different beliefs, and that they may know or not know something, then false belief. In 2011, Ameneh Shahaeian and colleagues found that Iranian children understood knowledge access before diverse beliefs. Chinese children showed the same order in earlier work. Australian and American children showed the reverse. The authors tie this to differences in culture, such as an emphasis on respect for elders and on avoiding disputes, and the explanation is a suggestion, not a settled finding. A later study of 164 Australian and Iranian children aged 3 to 9 found equal overall scores. More Australian children showed understanding of diverse beliefs, and more Iranian children showed understanding of knowledge access and sarcasm.

What is not known

Whether the thought “she thinks it is in the basket” comes before the right answer or is made by it is not known. The tasks measure the answer.

Whether the order differs because of culture, parenting or both is open. Two explanations have been proposed, and they are being tested.

What children’s own thoughts feel like to them, before they can tell, is not shown by these studies.