“It’s Not What You Think It Is”: 3-year-olds’ Understanding That Appearances Can “Deceive” and Lead to False Assumptions

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Topic - Social Cognition

Abstract

The ability to view or imagine a situation from the perspective of another individual is among the most astonishing capacities humans possess and the object of a lively debate about theory of mind and its development (Wimmer, Hogrefe, & Sodian, 1988). Most research on theory of mind development is aimed at discovering when children understand that people can hold false beliefs (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). A much smaller body of work is dedicated to children’s understanding that an object can appear to be one thing (chocolate) but really be something else (an eraser, see Moll & Tomasello, 2012). No research that we know of has explored the two issues in conjunction: When do children learn that appearances can “deceive” and lead to false assumptions?
To address this question, we applied a method that measures young children’s expressions as they watch puppet shows (see Moll et al., 2015, 2017). In the puppet shows, Puppet A stated her fondness of a particular food, e.g., chocolate. Puppet B then brought a look-alike of A’s favored food and demonstrated that it was inedible. The demonstration occurred either in A’s presence (Demonstration Witnessed Condition) or in A’s absence (Demonstration Unwitnessed Condition). A then approached the object. The rationale was that if children understand that A will falsely represent the object as her favored food in the Demonstration Unwitnessed Condition, they might manifest this in facial expressions, such as lip biting or brow furrowing. Another experimental manipulation concerned the question of what A experienced prior to B’s intervention. In one story type, A had brought her favorite food (e.g., chocolate) to the stage that B then replaced with a non-edible look-alike (Prior Experience Story). In another story type, A did not bring food to the stage but merely stated her fondness for it before B placed the non-edible look-alike on stage (No Prior Experience Story). The conditions were varied within subjects and story type was varied between subjects.
Preliminary data (N = 13 out of 60) show that children expressed more tension in response to A’s return to stage when A had not witnessed the demonstration than when she had witnessed it, p < .05. However, this was true only for children who received Prior Experience Stories (n = 7). Those who received No Prior Experience Stories (n = 6) did not express tension in either condition. The data suggest that 3-year-olds understand when an agent misconstrues objects, but only if they can draw on a “record” of the agent’s prior experiences (Apperly & Butterfill, 2009; Perner & Roessler, 2010, 2012). A control study (N = 30) will test whether children understand the causal role of deceptive appearances in sustaining A’s misrepresentation of an object as she sees and approaches it. Taken together, these experiments contribute to our knowledge of the scope and limits of preschoolers’ theory of mind by examining their understanding that appearances can “deceive” and cause false beliefs.

Authors

• Qianhui Ni, University of Southern California
  Presenting Author

• Alexandra Raport, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jake Shoyer, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Zoe Bautista, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Henrike Moll, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author