Mitchell P, Lacohée H
Department of Psychology, University College of Swansea, U.K.
Cognition. 1991 May;39(2):107-27. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(91)90040-b.
We investigated 3-year-olds' understanding of the representational capability of the mind by examining whether they would acknowledge that they had entertained a wrong belief. As in previous studies, children very often judged that they had believed a Smarties tube contained pencils when these were revealed as the true content, even though they had stated "Smarties" before the tube had been opened. Under another condition, when the tube was first presented, children mailed a picture into a postbox of what they thought was inside (Smarties). When asked "When you posted your picture, what did you think was in here (the tube)?" the great majority of children answered correctly with "Smarties". Additionally, children nearly always stated that the posted card displayed a picture of Smarties, and that the tube really contained pencils. On the traditional task, children may give the wrong answer because they are biased to make judgments about belief states on the basis of known physical reality. The posting task made it possible for children simultaneously to focus on physical reality and acknowledge false belief.
我们通过考察3岁儿童是否会承认自己曾持有错误信念，来研究他们对心理表征能力的理解。和之前的研究一样，当发现聪明豆管里装的实际上是铅笔时，孩子们常常判断自己之前以为里面装的是铅笔，尽管在管子打开之前他们说的是“聪明豆”。在另一种情况下，当管子首次呈现时，孩子们把他们认为管子里装的东西（聪明豆）的图片邮寄到一个邮箱里。当被问到“当你寄出你的图片时，你认为这里（管子）装的是什么？”绝大多数孩子都正确地回答是“聪明豆”。此外，孩子们几乎总是说寄出的卡片上展示的是聪明豆的图片，并且管子里实际装的是铅笔。在传统任务中，孩子们可能会给出错误答案，因为他们倾向于根据已知的物理现实来判断信念状态。而邮寄任务使孩子们能够同时关注物理现实并承认错误信念。
