Brown University.
NY Hall of Science.
Child Dev. 2019 Sep;90(5):1817-1831. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13099. Epub 2018 Jun 4.
Two studies investigated 4- to 7-year-olds' knowledge about pretending. In Study 1, children (N = 66) defined pretending and described examples of own and others' pretending. In Study 2, children (N = 52) defined pretending and then completed a battery of measures that examined their understanding that pretending involved mental states. In Study 1, older children articulated more defining features of pretending than younger children. When describing how they or others pretended, children focused on action or appearance, regardless of whether they had included more defining features in their definitions of pretending. In Study 2, the more defining features children articulated, the better their performance on the battery. We discuss the implications of these data for the role of pretending in children's developing theory of mind.
两项研究调查了 4 至 7 岁儿童对假装的认识。在研究 1 中，儿童（N=66）定义了假装，并描述了自己和他人假装的例子。在研究 2 中，儿童（N=52）定义了假装，然后完成了一系列测试，考察了他们对假装涉及心理状态的理解。在研究 1 中，年龄较大的儿童比年龄较小的儿童表达了更多假装的特征。在描述自己或他人如何假装时，儿童关注的是动作或外表，而不管他们在假装的定义中是否包含了更多的特征。在研究 2 中，儿童表达的特征越多，他们在测试中的表现就越好。我们讨论了这些数据对假装在儿童发展心理理论中的作用的影响。
