An important aspect of perspective-taking ability is the appreciation that mental states such as beliefs, desires, and knowledge change over time. The current study focused specifically on 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds' understanding that they will have knowledge in the future that they do not currently possess--for example, that when they are…

This study aimed at gaining further understanding of kindergartners' performance in imaginary perspective-taking (IPT) by examining whether they can imagine "what" is visible from a particular point of view (IPT type 1: visibility) and "how" an object or scene will look from a particular point of view (IPT type 2: appearance).…

When teachers or instructors create computer-based learning environments, they often solely consider technical aspects of interactivity. As a consequence, learners' main role is to respond to requests of the learning environment (e.g. by answering multiple-choice questions). This aspect of interactivity is, however, not sufficient to understand…

It has been argued that children who possess an advanced theory of mind (ToM) are more likely to act prosocially, yet the empirical findings are mixed. To address this issue definitively, a meta-analytic integration of all prior literature that met appropriate inclusion criteria was conducted. In total, 76 studies including 6,432 children between…

This study examined punishment of excluders and compensation of victims after observing an instance of social exclusion at various phases of adolescent development. Participants (n = 183; age 9 to 22 years) were first included in a virtual ball-tossing game, Cyberball, and then "observed" the exclusion of a peer. Subsequently, they…

Children (aged 6-10) and adults (total N = 136) completed a novel visual perspective-taking task that allowed quantitative comparisons across age groups. All age groups found it harder to judge the other person's perspective when it differed from their own. This egocentric interference did not decrease with age, even though, overall, performance…

How perspective-taking ability changes with age (i.e., whether older adults are better at understanding others' behaviors and intentions and show greater empathy to others or not) is not clear, with prior empirical findings on this phenomenon yielding mixed results. In a series of experiments, we investigated the phenomenon from a motivational…

Results support the hypothesis that certain classification skills underlie two types of role-taking ability: (1) in which children were asked how another child would think a cartoon ended if shown only the beginning; and (2) in which children were asked how another child would think a cartoon began if shown only the end. (Author/DB)