This looks like a special case of a failure of intentionality. If a child knows where the marble is, they’ve managed first-order intentionality, but if they don’t realize that Sally doesn’t know where the marble is, they’ve failed at second order.
Bob thinks about “What does Alice think about Bob?” and on rare occasions “What does Alice think Bob thinks about Alice?” but will not organically reason “What does Alice think Bob thinks about Alice’s model of Bob?”
then Bob can handle second and third but can’t easily handle fourth order intentionality.
This looks like a special case of a failure of intentionality. If a child knows where the marble is, they’ve managed first-order intentionality, but if they don’t realize that Sally doesn’t know where the marble is, they’ve failed at second order.
The orders go higher, though, and it’s not obvious how much higher humans can naturally go. If
then Bob can handle second and third but can’t easily handle fourth order intentionality.
It may be a useful writing skill to be comfortable with intentionality at one level higher than your audience.
That’s actually pretty easy: Alice doesn’t :-)
Obligatory reference: Battle of Wits.