Predictions of Actions and Their Justifications in False-Belief Tasks: The Role of Executive Function

• Authors: Adam Putko , Agata Złotogórska
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The main objective of this study was to examine whether children’s ability to justify their action predictions in terms of mental states is related, in a similar way as the ability to predict actions, to such aspects of executive function (EF) as executive control and working memory. An additional objective was to check whether the frequency of different types of justifications made by children in false-belief tasks is associated with aforementioned aspects of EF, as well as language. The study included 59 children aged 3-4 years. The ability to predict actions and to justify these predictions was measured with false-belief tasks. Luria’s hand-game was used to assess executive control, and the Counting and Labelling dual-task was used to assess working memory capacity. Language development was controlled using an embedded syntax test. It was found that executive control was a significant predictor of the children’s ability to justify their action predictions in terms of mental states, even when age and language were taken into account. Results also indicated a relationship between the type of justification in the false-belief task and language development. With the development of language children gradually cease to justify their action predictions in terms of current location, and they tend to construct irrelevant justifications before they begin to refer to beliefs. Data suggest that executive control, in contrast to language, is a factor which affects the development of the children’s ability to justify their action predictions only in its later phase, during a shift from irrelevant to correct justifications.

Keywords

EN

preschoolers; false-belief task; theory-of-mind development

• Publisher: Committee for Psychological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Polish Psychological Bulletin
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 45
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 500-510

Dates

published

2014-12-01

online

2014-12-16

Contributors

author

Adam Putko

• Institute of Psychology, A. Mickiewicz University

author

Agata Złotogórska

• Institute of Psychology, A. Mickiewicz University

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/ppb-2014-0060