Exploring False Belief Understanding in 15-Month-Old Infants: A Report

This report examines research on whether 15-month-old infants understand false beliefs, a topic debated due to conflicting results from verbal and non-verbal studies. The study included approximately 50 infants who observed an actor interacting with a toy and two boxes. The toy's location was changed without the actor's knowledge, and the infants' gaze was tracked to determine their expectations about where the actor would search for the toy. The results suggested that infants do possess a rudimentary understanding of false beliefs, aligning with the hypothesis that children act based on their interpretation of others' behavior. While the study acknowledges limitations in fully understanding the infants' perceptions and actions, it proposes future research directions, such as investigating cognitive abilities in autistic children who struggle with verbal false belief tasks. The presentation is explained with sufficient examples to understand the child psychology. Desklib provides similar solved assignments for students.

DO 15-MONTH-OLD INFANTS
UNDERSTAND FALSE
BELIEFS?

INTRODUCTION
 Why is this research important?
 It has been argued for a long time now
that infants are non-receptive to false
beliefs. The conclusions have been derived
on the basis of verbal studies performed.
 However, non-verbal or partly verbal
experiments have shown some other signs
that can be used to conclude that infants
might have an understanding of false
beliefs and how they work.

Research findings that led to
this study
 False beliefs have been an area of research for long.
Experiments have been conducted to study how,
when and why people incorporate false beliefs and
their responses as well as acceptance of the same.
 To understand how false belief works, let us consider
a box of chocolates and assume that a child has
taken the last chocolate from the box. When this child
will see a friend reaching the box for a chocolate, it is
imperative for the child to understand that the friend
believes falsely that the box still contains chocolates
because he is not aware that the last chocolate has
already taken by his friend.

Specific hypothesis being investigated
 This kind of experiments have been
performed a number of types with people
of different age groups and it was
observed that around the age of 4,
children develop a consciousness of their
surroundings which help them interpret
the behavior of others and accept that
they are acting out of false belief.

METHOD
 How was the study conducted?
 In the research, a group of about 50 infants belonging to
an average age of 15 months were included. They were
made to observe an actor who has a bright colored toy
and two boxes, say box A and B open at just one end.
The boxes were placed on a table, their open end facing
each other and hence not visible to either the infants or
the actor.
 The actor took the toy and played with it for a few
seconds. Then the actor left the toy in box A. In the next
step, the position of the toy was changed from box A to
box B. However, it was not done in the presence of
actors to make the infants understand that the actor is
not aware that the toy is not where he kept it

Procedure experienced by
participants
 In the experiment, the toy was still in box
A but box B was moved a bit closer to it,
without removing the toy from its initial
position. Based on the box at which the
children were looking for the longer
period of time, their understanding of the
situation was observed.

 Later, the toy was moved from box A to
B, without changing the position of the
boxes. The actor was called and he
stopped before looking for the toy in box
A. An attempt was made to understand
where the children expect the toy to be
by observing if they are looking at box A,
where the actor believes the toy to be, or
box B, where the toy actually is.

 In the next part, the actor reached for the toy
in box A first where the infants knew he
believed the toy was. Next, he reached for the
toy in box B, where the toy actually was. It
was kept in mind that the infants should
understand that the actor has no clue that the
position of the toy has been changed and
should not be looking for it in box B. Based on
the box that the infants look at for a longer
period of time, their understanding of false
beliefs were observed (Perner & Ruffman,
2005).

RESULTS
 The results are based on the idea that the
infants should look for a longer time at
the actor when he violated their
expectations by looking for the toy in box
B instead of box A when they knew that
he has no idea of the new location of the
toy

DISCUSSION
 What did the author conclude?
 It was observed that infants do
understand false belief but their
understanding is rudimentary and salient.
They were not confused when the actor
acted out of false belief.

 Were the hypotheses supported?
 The results were in sync with the
expectations after the completion of the
experiment. This supports the theory that
children are likely to act according to
their interpretation of how others might
behave.

LIMITATIONS
 The conclusions have been made on the
basis of the facts that the infants
understand their perception, the actor’s
perception and his actions.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS
 It could help understand the capabilities
of autistic children who have failed the
verbal experiments like the Sally Anne
test.

 Is the presentation enough explained to
understand?
 a) Enough
 b) Not enough
 c) Not enough at all

 Does the presentation consist of proper
examples?
 A) Yes
 B) A few
 C) Not at all

 Is this presentation helpful to learn about
child psychology?
 A) A lot helpful
 B) Sufficient helpful
 C) not at all helpful

 Does the presentation meet all the
queries about child psychology?
 A) Everything
 B) A few
 C) Absolutely not

 Does the presentation identifies some
new source of knowledge?
 A) Definitely
 B) Not something definite
 C) Not at all

References
 Baillargeon, R., Scott, R. M., & He, Z. (2010). False-
belief understanding in infants. Trends in cognitive
sciences, 14(3), 110-118.
 Onishi, K. H., & Baillargeon, R. (2005). Do 15-
month-old infants understand false
beliefs?. science, 308(5719), 255-258.
 Perner, J., & Ruffman, T. (2005). Infants' insight into
the mind: How deep?. Science, 308(5719), 214-
216.
 Southgate, V., Senju, A., & Csibra, G. (2007). Action
anticipation through attribution of false belief by 2-
year-olds. Psychological Science, 18(7), 587-592.