Eighteen-month-olds’ memory interference and distraction in a modified A-not-B task is not associated with their anticipatory looking in a false-belief task
نویسندگان
چکیده
Infants' performance in non-verbal false-belief tasks is often interpreted as if they have understood false beliefs. This view has been questioned by a recent account that explains infants' performance in non-verbal false-belief tasks as the result of susceptibility to memory interference and distraction. We tested this alternative account by investigating the relationship between infants' false-belief understanding, susceptibility to memory interference and distraction, and general cognitive development in 18-month-old infants (N = 22). False-belief understanding was tested in an anticipatory looking paradigm of a standard false-belief task. Susceptibility to memory interference and distraction was tested in a modified A-not-B task. Cognitive development was measured via the Mental Scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. We did not find any relationship between infants' performance in the false-belief task and the A-not-B task, even after controlling for cognitive development. This study shows that there is no ubiquitous relation between susceptibility to memory interference and distraction and performance in a false-belief task in infancy.
منابع مشابه
2.5-year-olds succeed at a verbal anticipatory-looking false-belief task.
Recent research suggests that infants and toddlers succeed at a wide range of non-elicited-response false-belief tasks (i.e., tasks that do not require children to answer a direct question about a mistaken agent's likely behaviour). However, one exception to this generalization comes from verbal anticipatory-looking tasks, which have produced inconsistent findings with toddlers. One possible ex...
متن کاملAutobiographical Brand Images Give a Higher Chance to False Memory as Compared to Neutral Images
Consumers’ prior experiences shape an episodic memory which largely influences their decision-making process. This episodic memory is mainly linked to cognitive and emotional perception and we know that a brand image influences our cognitive and emotional perception. Nevertheless, it has not been well described how autobiographical memories of brand images differ from those of other types of im...
متن کاملEighteen-month-old infants show false belief understanding in an active helping paradigm.
Recently, several studies have claimed that soon after their first birthday infants understand others' false beliefs. However, some have questioned these findings based on criticisms of the looking-time paradigms used. Here we report a new paradigm to test false belief understanding in infants using a more active behavioral response: helping. Specifically, the task was for infants to help an ad...
متن کاملHow fresh a look? A reply to Heyes.
Until recently, it was generally assumed that children younger than about age 4 do not understand that agents can hold false beliefs. This assumption was based mainly on results from elicited-response tasks, which require answering a direct question about the likely behavior of an agent who holds a false belief. Onishi and Baillargeon (2005) cast doubt on this assumption when they published res...
متن کاملEighteen-month-olds understand false beliefs in an unexpected-contents task.
Recent studies suggest that infants understand that others can have false beliefs. However, most of these studies have used looking time measures, and the few that have used behavioral measures are all based on the change-of-location paradigm, leading to claims that infants might use behavioral rules instead of mental state understanding to pass these tests. We investigated infants' false-belie...
متن کامل