How do young children develop the ability to understand that other people may hold knowledge, thoughts and feelings that differ from their own? This question is at the heart of Peter Krøjgaard’s new research project “Predicting Theory of Mind”, recently funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark.

Imagine a child being told the following story using two dolls, a basket and a box: Sally hides her ball in the basket and leaves the room. Anne, wanting to play a trick, moves the ball from the basket to the box. The child is then asked: “When Sally comes back, where will she look for her ball?”

The correct answer is that Sally will look in the basket, where she originally hid it. To answer correctly, the child must be able to take Sally’s perspective and disregard the fact that the ball has actually been moved — a classic explicit false belief test and a key measure of Theory of Mind.

Theory of Mind (ToM) refers to an understanding of how mental states, like intentions, desires, and beliefs, affect behaviour in ourselves and others. While researchers agree on the importance of ToM development, there is no agreement regarding how to predict ToM development. 

Therefore, scholars have recently called for longitudinal studies in which possible predictors and explicit false belief tests of ToM are assessed in the same children. 

The present project aims at conducting two such studies: Study 1 aims at examining whether early belief understanding using non-verbal tasks at 18 months of age will predict performance in a low-demands explicit false belief test at 33 months. 100 children will be part of study 1. Study 2 is a follow-up study on a comprehensive test of intentional understanding in 200 6-, 8-, 10-, and 12-month-olds where data is already collected. These children will return for standard explicit false belief tests. Results from these studies may lead to breakthroughs in developmental science.

Further info:

• Press release from Independent Research Fund Denmark
• More about Peter Krøjgaard and his research
• More about Sofie Aamand Beyer and her research