Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany.
Conscious Cogn. 2020 Oct;85:103017. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.103017. Epub 2020 Sep 12.
Prior studies document cross cultural variation in the developmental onset of mindreading. In particular, Japanese children are reported to pass a standard false belief task later than children from Western countries. By contrast, we know little about cross-cultural variation in young children's metacognitive abilities. Moreover, one prominent theoretical discussion in developmental psychology focuses on the relation between metacognition and mindreading. Here we investigated the relation between mindreading and metacognition (both implicit and explicit) by testing 4-year-old Japanese and German children. We found no difference in metacognition between the two cultural groups. By contrast, Japanese children showed lower performance than German children replicating cultural differences in mindreading. Finally, metacognition and mindreading were not related in either group. We discuss the findings in light of the existing theoretical accounts of the relation between metacognition and mindreading.
先前的研究记录了心理理论发展起点的跨文化差异。特别是，据报道，日本儿童通过标准错误信念任务的时间晚于来自西方国家的儿童。相比之下，我们对幼儿元认知能力的跨文化差异知之甚少。此外，发展心理学中的一个突出理论讨论集中在元认知和心理理论之间的关系上。在这里，我们通过测试 4 岁的日本和德国儿童，调查了心理理论和元认知（内隐和外显）之间的关系。我们发现两个文化群体之间的元认知没有差异。相比之下，日本儿童的表现低于德国儿童，复制了心理理论上的文化差异。最后，元认知和心理理论在任何一个群体中都没有关系。我们根据元认知和心理理论之间关系的现有理论解释讨论了这些发现。
