Attribution of Beliefs by 13-Month-Old Infants

TLDR

The study situates infant belief attribution within debates over conservative explanations and its link to later theory of mind. The study examined whether 13‑month‑old infants expect agents to act consistently with information they have received. Infants observed animations where an animal either had or lacked information about an object's location and then either successfully or unsuccessfully searched for it. Looking‑time data indicate infants expected successful searches only when the agent had access to information, supporting an early meta‑representational ability to attribute beliefs.

Abstract

In two experiments, we investigated whether 13-month-old infants expect agents to behave in a way that is consistent with information to which they have been exposed. Infants watched animations in which an animal was either provided information or prevented from gathering information about the actual location of an object. The animal then searched successfully or failed to retrieve the object. Infants' looking times suggest that they expected searches to be effective when—and only when—the agent had had access to the relevant information. This result supports the view that infants possess an incipient meta-representational ability that permits them to attribute beliefs to agents. We discuss the viability of more conservative explanations and the relation between this early ability and later forms of theory of mind that appear only after children have become experienced verbal communicators.