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Cited by 1,030Child and Animal Learning DevelopmentSocial Robot Interaction and HRILanguage Development and Disorders

False-belief understanding in infants

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Baillargeon, Renée, Scott, Rose M., He, Zijing·2010·Trends in Cognitive Sciences
DOI 10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.006PMC PMC2930901
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Abstract

At what age can children attribute false beliefs to others? Traditionally, investigations into this question have used elicited-response tasks in which children are asked a direct question about an agent's' false belief. Results from these tasks indicate that the ability to attribute false beliefs does not emerge until about age 4. However, recent investigations using spontaneous-response tasks suggest that this ability is present much earlier. Here we review results from various spontaneous-response tasks which suggest that infants in the second year of life can already attribute false beliefs about location and identity as well as false perceptions. We also consider alternative interpretations that have been offered for these results, and discuss why elicited-response tasks are particularly difficult for young children.

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Crossref · 10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.006

Cites

73 of 73 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

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Claims the paper makes

0 of 73 cited sources checked · 0 supported · 0 flagged

  • Findingreasoning

    In many VOE false-belief tasks, the event that is unexpected in one false-belief condition is the same event that is expected in another false-belief condition.

    “Indeed, in many VOE false-belief tasks, the event that is unexpected in one false-belief condition is the same event that is expected in another false-belief condition.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim
    • Rests on an assumption: Looking-time responses in VOE tasks reflect infants' mental-state attributions rather than merely perceptual or attentional preferences.
  • Findingcitation

    In VOE tasks, 2.5-year-olds attribute false beliefs about objects' location or contents to agents.

    “In VOE tasks, 2.5-year-olds attribute to agents false beliefs about objects' location or contents [67].”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites [67] He, Z. et al. False-belief understanding in 2.5-year-olds: Evidence from change-of-location and unexpected-contents violation-of-expectation tasks. Dev. Sci. (in press)

      Not checked in the free run.

    • Rests on an assumption: Looking-time responses in VOE tasks reflect infants' mental-state attributions rather than merely perceptual or attentional preferences.
  • Premisecitation

    Frontal-temporal brain connections mature later and more slowly than other connections.

    “(3) the connections between the frontal and temporal brain regions mature later and more slowly than other connections [38].”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites [38] Lebel, 2008, Microstructural maturation of the human brain from childhood to adulthood, Neuroimage source

      Not checked in the free run.

  • Premisecitation

    Song and colleagues found that 18-month-olds expect an agent's false belief about location to be corrected by appropriate but not inappropriate communication.

    “Song, Onishi, Baillargeon, and Fisher [17] showed that 18-month-olds realize that an agent's false belief about an object's location can be corrected by an appropriate, though not an inappropriate, communication.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites [17] Song, 2008, Can an agent's false belief be corrected through an appropriate communication? Psychological reasoning in 18-month-old infants, Cognition source

      Not checked in the free run.

  • Interpretationreasoning

    Young children are unlikely to fail elicited-response false-belief tasks because they cannot represent false beliefs.

    “Given the findings reviewed above, young children are unlikely to fail elicited-response false-belief tasks because they cannot represent false beliefs (due to conceptual, linguistic, executive-function, or other limitations).”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim
  • May combine two claims. 15
  • Classified as probably not a substantial claim. 4

  • May combine two claims.

    Findingcitation

    In many VOE tasks, infants look longer at a test event that deviates from familiarization events in one condition, but infants in other similar conditions do not.

    “For instance, in many VOE tasks, infants in one condition look longer at the test event that deviates from the familiarization events, but infants in other, very similar conditions do not.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 4 sources checked
    • cites [48] Luo, 2005, Can a self-propelled box have a goal? Psychological reasoning in 5-month-old infants, Psychol. Sci. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [53] Luo, 2007, Do 12. 5-month-old infants consider what objects others can see when interpreting their actions?, Cognition source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [54] Luo, 2009, Recognizing the role of perception in action at 6 months, Dev. Sci. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [64] Luo, 2010, Do you see what I see? Infants’ reasoning about others’ incomplete perceptions, Dev. Sci. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • Rests on an assumption: Looking-time responses in VOE tasks reflect infants' mental-state attributions rather than merely perceptual or attentional preferences.

  • May combine two claims.

    Findingcitation

    In the low-inhibition Sally-Ann task, although response-inhibition demands are substantially reduced, performance is still at chance, presumably because of response-selection demands.

    “Although response-inhibition demands are substantially reduced in this task (since children do not know the marble's current location), performance is still at chance [2,7], presumably because of response-selection demands.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 2 sources checked
    • cites [2] Wimmer, 1983, Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception, Cognition source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [7] Wellman, 2001, Meta-analysis of theory-of-mind development: The truth about false belief, Child Dev. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • Rests on an assumption: Looking-time responses in VOE tasks reflect infants' mental-state attributions rather than merely perceptual or attentional preferences.

  • May combine two claims.

    Findingcitation

    After familiarization in which an agent repeatedly grasps object-A, infants look longer in test when the agent grasps object-B, but only if object-B was present and visible to the agent during familiarization, giving infants evidence that the agent prefers object-A.

    “To illustrate, after watching familiarization events in which an agent repeatedly grasps object-A, infants look longer in test if the agent now grasps object-B, but only if object-B is both present and visible to the agent during the familiarization events, so that infants have evidence that the agent prefers object-A over object-B [48,53,54,64].”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 4 sources checked
    • cites [48] Luo, 2005, Can a self-propelled box have a goal? Psychological reasoning in 5-month-old infants, Psychol. Sci. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [53] Luo, 2007, Do 12. 5-month-old infants consider what objects others can see when interpreting their actions?, Cognition source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [54] Luo, 2009, Recognizing the role of perception in action at 6 months, Dev. Sci. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [64] Luo, 2010, Do you see what I see? Infants’ reasoning about others’ incomplete perceptions, Dev. Sci. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • Rests on an assumption: Looking-time responses in VOE tasks reflect infants' mental-state attributions rather than merely perceptual or attentional preferences.

  • May combine two claims.

    Findingcitation

    In Scott and Baillargeon's ignorance experiment, infants looked about equally when the agent reached for either cover, as if they understood she could not know which cover hid the 2-piece penguin; infants in a control experiment remembered where it was hidden.

    “The infants looked about equally when the agent reached for either cover, as though they realized that she could not know which cover hid the 2-piece penguin (infants in a control experiment did remember where the 2-piece penguin was hidden).”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites [4] Scott, 2009, Which penguin is this? Attributing false beliefs about identity at 18 months, Child Dev. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • Rests on an assumption: Looking-time responses in VOE tasks reflect infants' mental-state attributions rather than merely perceptual or attentional preferences.

  • May combine two claims.

    Interpretationnone given

    When tested with VOE, AL, helping, and referential-communication tasks, infants attribute false beliefs about location and identity as well as false perceptions.

    “When tested with VOE, AL, helping, and referential-communication tasks, infants attribute to agents false beliefs about location and identity as well as false perceptions.”
    Quote in the paperNot a substantial claim

  • May combine two claims.

    Interpretationreasoning

    Young children fail elicited-response tasks because executing the three processes at once overwhelms their limited resources and/or because the relevant brain connections are still inefficient.

    “Young children fail elicited-response tasks because simultaneously executing the false-belief-representation, response-selection, and response-inhibition processes overwhelms their limited resources, and/or because the connections between the brain regions that serve these processes are still inefficient.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim
    • The authors state this as an assumption: The psychological-reasoning system involves at least two subsystems, Subsystem-1 and Subsystem-2.

  • May combine two claims.

    Interpretationcitation

    Infants understand that an agent can hold a false belief about location when the object is moved in the agent's absence or hidden in the agent's absence with misleading cues.

    “Moreover, infants recognize that an agent can hold a false belief about an object's location because (1) it is moved to another hiding location in the agent's absence or (2) it is hidden in the agent's absence and misleading perceptual or contextual cues cause the agent to incorrectly infer its likely location.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim

  • May combine two claims.

    Premisecitation

    SS1 is operational in the first months of life and is well established by the end of the first year.

    “SS1 is already operational in the first months of life and is well in place by the end of the first year [45-57].”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 10 sources checked
    • cites [45] Csibra, 2008, Goal attribution to inanimate agents by 6.5-month-old infants, Cognition source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [46] Hamlin, 2007, Social evaluation by preverbal infants, Nature source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [47] Johnson, 2007, Actors and actions: The role of agent behavior in infants’ attribution of goals, Cogn. Dev. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [48] Luo, 2005, Can a self-propelled box have a goal? Psychological reasoning in 5-month-old infants, Psychol. Sci. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [49] Premack, 1997, Infants attribute value +/- to the goal-directed actions of self-propelled objects, J. Cogn. Neurosci. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [50] Gergely, 2002, Rational imitation in preverbal infants, Nature source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [51] Luo, Y. Do 8-month-olds consider situational constraints when interpreting others’ gaze as goal-directed action? Infancy (in press)

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [52] Liszkowski, 2006, 12- and 18-month-olds point to provide information for others, J. Cogn. Dev. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [53] Luo, 2007, Do 12. 5-month-old infants consider what objects others can see when interpreting their actions?, Cognition source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [54] Luo, 2009, Recognizing the role of perception in action at 6 months, Dev. Sci. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • Rests on an assumption: Looking-time responses in VOE tasks reflect infants' mental-state attributions rather than merely perceptual or attentional preferences.

  • Classified as probably not a substantial claim. May combine two claims.

    Interpretationreasoning

    In indirect-elicited-response tasks, infants only needed to consult additional information and did not have to access their false-belief representation directly.

    “To respond correctly when prompted, the infants only needed to consult this additional information: they did not have to tap their representation of the agent's false belief directly, as they would have if asked which box the agent would approach to retrieve his toy or her sefo.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim
    • The authors state this as an assumption: The psychological-reasoning system involves at least two subsystems, Subsystem-1 and Subsystem-2.

  • Classified as probably not a substantial claim. May combine two claims.

    Interpretationcitation

    According to the response account, infants in indirect-elicited-response tasks represented the agent's false belief and used it to infer the agent's goal or the referent of 'sefo'.

    “According to the response account, the infants in these indirect-elicited-response tasks represented the agent's false belief and used this representation to infer what goal the agent was trying to achieve [39] or which object was the sefo [40].”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 2 sources checked
    • cites [39] Buttelmann, 2009, Eighteen-month-old infants show false belief understanding in an active helping paradigm, Cognition source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [40] Southgate, V. et al. Seventeen-month-olds appeal to false beliefs to interpret others’ referential communication. Dev Sci. (in press)

      Not checked in the free run.

    • The authors state this as an assumption: The psychological-reasoning system involves at least two subsystems, Subsystem-1 and Subsystem-2.

  • May combine two claims.

    Premisecitation

    The developmental pattern from elicited-response tasks is replicated with different false-belief tasks and in children from different countries.

    “This developmental pattern has been confirmed with tasks testing different false beliefs [8,9] and with children from different countries [10,11].”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 4 sources checked
    • cites [8] Gopnik, 1988, Children's understanding of representational change and its relation to the understanding of false belief and the appearance-reality distinction, Child Dev. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [9] Perner, 1987, Three-year-olds’ difficulty with false belief: The case for a conceptual deficit, Br. J. Dev. Psychol. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [10] Callaghan, 2005, Synchrony in the onset of mental-state reasoning, Psychol. Sci. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [11] Liu, 2008, Theory of mind development in Chinese children: A meta-analysis of false-belief understanding across cultures and languages, Dev. Psychol. source

      Not checked in the free run.

  • May combine two claims.

    Premisecitation

    In Buttelmann and colleagues' indirect-elicited-response task, 18-month-olds approached the other box, suggesting they understood the agent falsely believed the toy was still in its original location.

    “When prompted to help the agent, most infants approached the other box (i.e. the one the agent did not act on), suggesting that they realized the agent falsely believed the toy was still in its original location and wanted to retrieve it.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 1 sources checked
    • cites [39] Buttelmann, 2009, Eighteen-month-old infants show false belief understanding in an active helping paradigm, Cognition source

      Not checked in the free run.

  • May combine two claims.

    Interpretationreasoning

    Infants' false-belief attribution is robust across different spontaneous-response tasks, belief-inducing situations, and human and non-human agents.

    “This ability is quite robust: it can be demonstrated with different spontaneous-response tasks, with various belief-inducing situations, and with human and non-human agents.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim

  • Classified as probably not a substantial claim.

    Premisecitation

    Elicited-response false-belief tasks show that children do not attribute false beliefs until around four years of age.

    “Results from these tasks indicate that the ability to attribute false beliefs does not emerge until about age 4.”
    • Also stated in: § When do children first attribute false beliefs to others? · hedged
      “Beginning at about age 4, children typically answer correctly and point to the basket (where Sally falsely believes the toy is); in contrast, most 3-year-olds point to the box (where the toy actually is), suggesting that they do not yet understand that Sally will have a false belief.”
    • Also stated in: § When do children first attribute false beliefs to others? · hedged
      “These highly consistent results have led many researchers to conclude that the ability to attribute false beliefs to others does not emerge until about 4 years of age [12-15].”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 4 sources checked
    • cites [12] Gopnik, 1994, The “theory theory”

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [13] Perner, 1991

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [14] Tager-Flusberg, 2005, What neurodevelopmental disorders can reveal about cognitive architecture: the example of theory of mind

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [15] Wellman, H. Developing a theory of mind. In The Blackwell Handbook of Cognitive Development (2nd edn) (Goswami, U., ed.), Blackwell (in press)

      Not checked in the free run.

  • May combine two claims.

    Interpretationcitation

    Spontaneous-response tasks have demonstrated that infants can attribute false beliefs about location, false perceptions, and false beliefs about identity.

    “To date, spontaneous-response tasks have shown that infants can attribute to an agent a false belief about an object's location [16-19], a false perception of an object [21], and a false belief about an object's identity [4]; these findings are described below.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 6 sources checked
    • cites [16] Onishi, 2005, Do 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs?, Science source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [17] Song, 2008, Can an agent's false belief be corrected through an appropriate communication? Psychological reasoning in 18-month-old infants, Cognition source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [18] Southgate, 2007, Action anticipation through attribution of false belief by two-year-olds, Psychol. Sci. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [19] Surian, 2007, Attribution of beliefs to 13-month-old infants, Psychol. Sci. source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [21] Song, 2008, Infants’ reasoning about others’ false perceptions, Dev. Psychol. source

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    • cites [4] Scott, 2009, Which penguin is this? Attributing false beliefs about identity at 18 months, Child Dev. source

      Not checked in the free run.

  • Classified as probably not a substantial claim.

    Interpretationreasoning

    In early childhood, response selection may have difficulty accessing false-belief representation because the relevant brain connections are still immature.

    “Thus, it could be that, in early childhood, the response-selection process has difficulty tapping the false-belief-representation process (SS2) because the connections between the relevant brain regions are still immature.”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim
    • The authors state this as an assumption: The psychological-reasoning system involves at least two subsystems, Subsystem-1 and Subsystem-2.

  • May combine two claims.

    Interpretationcitation

    SS2 extends SS1 and allows infants to attribute reality-incongruent informational states, including false beliefs and pretense, to agents.

    “SS2 extends SS1 and enables infants to attribute to agents reality-incongruent informational states; these include false beliefs as well as pretense [58,59].”
    Quote in the paperSubstantial claim0 of 2 sources checked
    • cites [58] Onishi, 2007, 15-month-old infants detect violations in pretend scenarios, Acta Psychol. (Amst). source

      Not checked in the free run.

    • cites [59] Leslie, 1994, Pretending and believing: Issues in the theory of ToMM, Cognition source

      Not checked in the free run.

17 of 17

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    Infants are born with a psychological-reasoning system that gives them a skeletal causal framework for interpreting agents' actions.

    “Like several other researchers, we assume that infants are born with a psychological-reasoning system that provides them with a skeletal causal framework for interpreting the actions of agents [3,41-43].”

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The psychological-reasoning system operates without conscious awareness.

    “it operates without conscious awareness [17,44]”

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The psychological-reasoning system applies to human or non-human agents.

    “it applies to human or non-human agents [19,45-49]”

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The psychological-reasoning system is constrained by core principles such as rationality, meaning agents pursue goals in causally appropriate and efficient ways.

    “it is constrained by core principles such as rationality (agents pursue their goals in causally appropriate and efficient ways) [41,45,50,51]”

  • The authors state this as an assumption.

    The psychological-reasoning system involves at least two subsystems, Subsystem-1 and Subsystem-2.

    “and it involves at least two subsystems, Subsystem-1 (SS1) and Subsystem-2 (SS2) [3].”

  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Looking-time responses in VOE tasks reflect infants' mental-state attributions rather than merely perceptual or attentional preferences.

    “The infants looked about equally when the agent reached for either cover, as though they realized that she could not know which cover hid the 2-piece penguin”
6 of 6

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Very young infants succeed in age-appropriate versions of false belief tasks, so failure in standard false belief tasks should not be taken as evidence for impaired theory of mind.

    “Research in developmental psychology has indeed revealed that very young infants succeed in age-appropriate versions of the FBT, hence indicating that failure in standard FBTs should not be taken as evidence for impaired ToM [90].”

    From The social motivation theory of autism (2012) · cites this paper as [90]

  • Recent tasks designed to test theory of mind in young infants have not been used in ASD, and longitudinal studies assessing the development of social motivation and social cognition are still lacking.

    “Indeed, recent tasks designed to test ToM in young infants [90] have not been used in ASD and longitudinal studies assessing the development of social motivation and social cognition are still lacking.”

    From The social motivation theory of autism (2012) · cites this paper as [90]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

Each contradiction between two passages listed here was confirmed by an independent check.

  • Association quotation cites a reference with different page numbers

    Minor

    The quotation is cited to reference 60, page 462, but reference 60 spans pages 214-216. Page 462 falls within reference 61, which is also cited in the sentence.

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Related

Authors
Baillargeon, R., Scott, R. M., & He, Z.
Affiliations
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
ORCID
He, Zijing
Venue
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2010-03
Volume
14
Issue
3
Pages
110-118
ISSN
1364-6613 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.006
PMC
PMC2930901
OpenAlex
W2156189282
Semantic Scholar
06a8015225066cd6c2f80e76d54e4c7361f8728d
Cited by
1,030
References
76
Citations by year
2026: 39 · 2025: 47 · 2024: 63 · 2023: 53 · 2022: 69 · 2021: 60 · 2020: 48 · 2019: 101 · 2018: 65 · 2017: 75 · 2016: 88 · 2015: 77 · 2014: 59 · 2013: 57 · 2012: 60
FWCI
11.20
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Trends in Cognitive Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Mental Health (1 T32 MH1819990)
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD021104, HD021104)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Social Robot Interaction and HRI
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
Keywords
false belief understanding, theory of mind, infants, false perception, false identity, cognitive development, second year of life
MeSH terms
Age Factors, Child, Child Development, Child Language, Communication, Concept Formation, Humans, Infant, Language Development, Psychological Theory, Space Perception, Comprehension

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