Modeling Developmental Transitions in Reasoning about False Beliefs of Others

Monkeys represent others' knowledge but not their beliefs.

The capacity to reason about the false beliefs of others is classically considered the benchmark for a fully fledged understanding of the mental lives of others. Although much is known about the developmental origins of our understanding of others' beliefs, we still know much less about the evolutionary origins of this capacity. Here, we examine whether non-human primates - specifically, rhesus...

First and second-order false-belief reasoning: Does language support reasoning about the beliefs of others?

Running Head: THE CURSE OF KNOWLEDGE The Curse of Knowledge in Reasoning about False Beliefs

Assessing what others know and believe is critical for accurately understanding human action. Young children find it difficult to reason about false beliefs—beliefs that conflict with reality. The source of this difficulty is a matter of considerable debate. Here we show that if sensitive enough measures are used, adults show deficits in the same kind of false belief task that young children fa...

A Bayesian Framework for False Belief Reasoning in Children: A Rational Integration of Theory-Theory and Simulation Theory

Two apparently contrasting theories have been proposed to account for the development of children's theory of mind (ToM): theory-theory and simulation theory. We present a Bayesian framework that rationally integrates both theories for false belief reasoning. This framework exploits two internal models for predicting the belief states of others: one of self and one of others. These internal mod...

Cognitive Architecture of Belief Reasoning in Children and Adults: A Two-Systems Account Primer

Characterizing the cognitive architecture of human mindreading forces us to address two puzzles in people’s attributions of belief: why children show inconsistent expectations about others’ belief-based actions, and why adults’ belief reasoning is sometimes automatic and sometimes not. The seemingly puzzling data suggest humans have multiple mindreading systems that use different models of the ...