Abstract
Children are believed to develop an understanding that others can maintain and act upon a false belief by the age of four; however, there is some controversy as to how exactly children develop this "understanding." This study compared three-year-olds' and four-year-olds' abilities to correctly identify a false belief in both an animal and a human. I found that using an animal as an actor in a false belief task increased the likelihood of three-year-olds passing the task. Results are discussed in terms of the possible implications that the effect of varying the situation in which a child makes a prediction of false belief, such as altering the actor used, has for the four main theories of theory of mind development: Modularity, "Theory-Theory", Simulation, and Vygotskian.
Saunders, Katherine Nuttall (1998). Children's understanding of false belief in humans and animals. Master's thesis, Texas A&M University. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /ETD -TAMU -1998 -THESIS -S28.