Continuity in social cognition from infancy to childhood

Abstract

Abstract Research examining the development of social cognition has largely been divided into two areas: infant perception of intentional agents, and preschoolers’ understanding of others’ mental states and beliefs (theory of mind). Many researchers have suggested that there is continuity in social cognitive development such that the abilities observed in infancy are related to later preschool ability, yet little empirical evidence exists for this claim. Here, we present preliminary evidence that capacities specific to the social domain contribute to performance in social cognition tasks both during infancy and in early childhood. Specifically, looking time patterns in an infant social cognition task correlated with preschool theory of mind; however, no such relationship was found for infants in a nonsocial cognition task.