TY - JOUR
T1 - Toward a mentalistic account of early psychological reasoning
AU - Luo, Yuyan
AU - Baillargeon, Renée
N1 - Funding Information:
The preparation of this article was supported by research funds from the University of Missouri to the first author and by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD-021104) to the second author.
PY - 2010/10
Y1 - 2010/10
N2 - Recent investigations of early psychological understanding have revealed three key findings. First, young infants attribute goals and dispositions to any entity they perceive as an agent, whether human or nonhuman. Second, when interpreting an agent's actions in a scene, young infants take into account the agent's representation of the scene, even if this representation is less complete than their own. Third, at least by the second year of life, infants recognize that agents can hold false beliefs about a scene. Together, these findings support a system-based, mentalistic account of early psychological reasoning.
AB - Recent investigations of early psychological understanding have revealed three key findings. First, young infants attribute goals and dispositions to any entity they perceive as an agent, whether human or nonhuman. Second, when interpreting an agent's actions in a scene, young infants take into account the agent's representation of the scene, even if this representation is less complete than their own. Third, at least by the second year of life, infants recognize that agents can hold false beliefs about a scene. Together, these findings support a system-based, mentalistic account of early psychological reasoning.
KW - infant cognition
KW - mentalistic reasoning
KW - psychological understanding
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=78649396032&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1177/0963721410386679
DO - 10.1177/0963721410386679
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:78649396032
SN - 0963-7214
VL - 19
SP - 301
EP - 307
JO - Current Directions in Psychological Science
JF - Current Directions in Psychological Science
IS - 5
ER -