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…

Perspective taking, defined as the ability to take on the visual, cognitive, and affective perspective of others, is considered a highly adaptive skill, vital for the child's social, intellectual, and emotional development. This article provides a critical analysis of scientific psychological literature from 1995 to the present on the main methods…

Studies with infants show divergence between performance on theory of mind tasks depending on whether "direct" or "indirect" measures are used. It has been suggested that direct measures assess a flexible but cognitively demanding ability to reason about the minds of others, whereas indirect measures assess distinct processes…

Upon learning the outcome to a problem, people tend to believe that they knew it all along ("hindsight bias"). Here, we report the first study to trace the development of hindsight bias across the life span. One hundred ninety-four participants aged 3 to 95 years completed 3 tasks designed to measure visual and verbal hindsight bias. All age…

Individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) show a specific deficit in visuo-spatial abilities. This finding, however, derives mainly from performance on small-scale laboratory-based tasks. This study investigated large-scale route learning in individuals with WS and two matched control groups (moderate learning difficulty group [MLD], typically…

Patterns of development of ToM belief abilities in intellectually disabled (ID) children and typically developing (TD) children matched on their developmental age were investigated. The links between cognition, language, social understanding and ToM belief abilities were examined. EDEI-R [Perron-Borelli M. (1996). "Echelles Differentielles…

Compares the many-perspectives account of lexical acquisition--which proposes that children learn to take alternative perspectives along with the words they acquire--to the one-perspective account--which proposes that children are at first able to use only one term to talk about an object or event. Provides evidence from a variety of sources that…

This study examined how 21 blind children (ages 3-8) performed perspective-taking tasks compared to 60 sighted children with and without blindfolds, under different conditions of distance and barriers. Results showed that, with increasing age, young blind children did not exhibit a significant increase in accurate perspective taking. (JDD)

Two experiments examined impact of training in false belief understanding on 3-year-olds. Training involved encouragement of reflection on the event of various false belief scenarios, especially the protagonist's thoughts. Results suggested that task-specific strategies for close transfer posttest success were learned, rather than demonstrating a…

In an attempt to validate the findings of other researchers regarding the development of conceptual perspective taking, this study used Taylor's (1988) 2-tiered model to examine development of perspective taking among 40 3- to 5-year-olds. Participating were 22 males and 18 females from English-speaking backgrounds attending a preschool in…

Theory of mind research focuses on children's understanding of other people's minds, their desires, intentions, and beliefs. Currently, there is much debate as to what is the substrate for children's theory of mind development; socio-cognitive skills, linguistic development, a simulation of one's own mental states, and the maturation of innate…

Compared the social cognitive styles of abused children with a control sample and found differences in perceived locus of control of social events and social role comprehensions. Similar trends emerged in perspective-taking skills and social sensitivity. Suggests these differences could not be attributed to IQ or class disparities. (Author)

This book deals with cognitive development from the perspective of the author's theory of conceptual learning and development (CLD) and from a Piagetian perspective. Chapter I provides an overview of CLD theory and also identifies and discusses the Piagetian constructs of stage, groupement structures, and equilibration. Chapter II focuses on the…