False-Belief Understanding Measure

A False-Belief Understanding Measure is a cognitive measure that is calculated by testing an individual's ability to understand that others can hold false beliefs.

• Example(s):
  • Sally-Anne Test,
  • Smarties Task,
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Memory Recall Measure,
  • Spatial Reasoning Measure.
• See: Theory of Mind, Social Cognition, Developmental Psychology, Mental State, Hindsight Bias, Mental Disability.

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References

2023

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  • False-belief understanding refers to the ability to recognize that others may hold beliefs or perspectives that are different from one's own and that these beliefs may not be accurate or true. It is a crucial aspect of social cognition and theory of mind, which is the capacity to understand and interpret the mental states of others, such as their desires, emotions, intentions, and beliefs.

    The development of false-belief understanding typically occurs during early childhood, around the ages of 4 to 5, and is considered an important milestone in a child's cognitive and social development. It enables children to engage in more complex social interactions, predict the behavior of others, and develop empathy.

    A classic experiment to test false-belief understanding is the Sally-Anne task, which involves two dolls named Sally and Anne. In this task, a child watches a scenario where Sally places a toy in a specific location and then leaves the room. While Sally is gone, Anne moves the toy to a different location. When she returns, the child is then asked where Sally will look for the toy. If the child understands false belief, they will correctly predict that Sally will look for the toy in the original location, as she is unaware that Anne moved it. This demonstrates the child's ability to understand that Sally holds a belief different from their own and that this belief is false.

2023

• (Wikipedia, 2023) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/theory_of_mind#False-belief_task Retrieved:2023-3-20.
  • One of the most important milestones in theory of mind development is the ability to attribute false belief: in other words, to understand that other people can believe things which are not true. To do this, it is suggested, one must understand how knowledge is formed, that people's beliefs are based on their knowledge, that mental states can differ from reality, and that people's behavior can be predicted by their mental states. Numerous versions of false-belief task have been developed, based on the initial task created by Wimmer and Perner (1983).

    In the most common version of the false-belief task (often called the "'Sally-Anne' test" or "'Sally-Anne' task"), children are told or shown a story involving two dolls, Sally and Anne, who have a basket and a box, respectively. Sally also has a marble, which she places into her basket, and then leaves the room. While she is out of the room, Anne takes the marble from the basket and puts it into the box. Sally returns, and the child is then asked where Sally will look for the marble. The child passes the task if she answers that Sally will look in the basket, where Sally put the marble; the child fails the task if she answers that Sally will look in the box, where the child knows the marble is hidden, even though Sally cannot know this, since she did not see it hidden there. To pass the task, the child must be able to understand that another's mental representation of the situation is different from their own, and the child must be able to predict behavior based on that understanding.

    Another example depicts a boy who leaves chocolate on a shelf and then leaves the room. His mother puts it in the fridge. To pass the task, the child must understand that the boy, upon returning, holds the false belief that his chocolate is still on the shelf.

    The results of research using false-belief tasks have been fairly consistent: most typically developing children are able to pass the tasks from around age four. Notably, while most children, including those with Down syndrome, are able to pass this test, in one study, 80% of children diagnosed with autism were unable to do so.

    Adults may also struggle with false beliefs, for instance when they show hindsight bias—"the inclination to see events that have already happened as being more predictable than they were before they took place." In one experiment, adult subjects who were asked for an independent assessment were unable to disregard information on actual outcome. Also in experiments with complicated situations, when assessing others' thinking, adults can fail to correctly disregard certain information that they have been given.

2010

• (Baillargeonée et al., 2010) ⇒ Ren Baillargeonée, Rose M. Scott, and Zijing He. (2010). “False-belief Understanding in Infants.” In: Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(3).

2009

• (Pyers & Senghas, 2009) ⇒ Jennie E. Pyers, and Ann Senghas. (2009). “Language Promotes False-belief Understanding: Evidence from Learners of a New Sign Language.” Psychological Science, 20(7). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02377.x
  • ABSTRACT: Developmental studies have identified a strong correlation in the timing of language development and false-belief understanding. However, the nature of this relationship remains unresolved. Does language promote false-belief understanding, or does it merely facilitate development that could occur independently, albeit on a delayed timescale? We examined language development and false-belief understanding in deaf learners of an emerging sign language in Nicaragua. The use of mental-state vocabulary and performance on a low-verbal false-belief task were assessed, over 2 years, in adult and adolescent users of Nicaraguan Sign Language. Results show that those adults who acquired a nascent form of the language during childhood produce few mental-state signs and fail to exhibit false-belief understanding. Furthermore, those whose language developed over the period of the study correspondingly developed in false-belief understanding. Thus, language learning, over and above social experience, drives the development of a mature theory of mind.

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