Young children commit the mind projection fallacy. If you introduce a puppet figure Mary who sees that a sweet is put under box A, then take Mary away, swap the location of the sweet with Box B and then ask the children where Mary would look for the sweet, very young children tend to say it’s B. Only older children realize Mary would look under Box A because she doesn’t know otherwise.
I wonder if the fact that it’s a puppet confounds this at all. If the child doesn’t realize that the puppet is meant to be a separate entity from the puppeteer who moved the sweet, their answer is correct. That said, I expect the experiment has been done with actual people, not just puppets—but if not, it’s something to look at.
Thanks! I just did the experiment with my three-years-old. She didn’t pass, and she was quite confident in her wrong answer.
She interrupted the experiment twice. First at the very beginning, when she realized that poor Anne has no marbles, and went and brought her another one. We explained to her that in this story there is only one marble. Later she interrupted the play to give the marble back to its rightful owner. Right now, she is in the process of giving one marble (actually, Lego brick) to each of her dozens of plush toys.
She interrupted the experiment twice. First at the very beginning, when she realized that poor Anne has no marbles, and went and brought her another one. We explained to her that in this story there is only one marble. Later she interrupted the play to give the marble back to its rightful owner. Right now, she is in the process of giving one marble (actually, Lego brick) to each of her dozens of plush toys.
Young children commit the mind projection fallacy. If you introduce a puppet figure Mary who sees that a sweet is put under box A, then take Mary away, swap the location of the sweet with Box B and then ask the children where Mary would look for the sweet, very young children tend to say it’s B. Only older children realize Mary would look under Box A because she doesn’t know otherwise.
This seems like a fertile source of examples—anywhere that ‘theory of mind’ is lacking. (I think that’s the right keyword to search for papers with.)
I wonder if the fact that it’s a puppet confounds this at all. If the child doesn’t realize that the puppet is meant to be a separate entity from the puppeteer who moved the sweet, their answer is correct. That said, I expect the experiment has been done with actual people, not just puppets—but if not, it’s something to look at.
Pointer to literature-n-keywords: Sally-Anne Test :-)
Thanks! I just did the experiment with my three-years-old. She didn’t pass, and she was quite confident in her wrong answer.
She interrupted the experiment twice. First at the very beginning, when she realized that poor Anne has no marbles, and went and brought her another one. We explained to her that in this story there is only one marble. Later she interrupted the play to give the marble back to its rightful owner. Right now, she is in the process of giving one marble (actually, Lego brick) to each of her dozens of plush toys.
Awwwwww!
Thanks for the link! I knew about the experiment but had forgotten its name. My attempts at search failed me.
Good good—that was my extremely vague recollection from having previously heard about such experiments, but I wasn’t the least bit confident in it.