A study of 46 18-month-old children and 72 three-year-old children finds that three-year-old children were able to retroactively combine episodic memory with present information to retrospectively identify false beliefs in an experimenter; 18-month-old children were unable to do so but were able to prospectively identify and track false beliefs in others, suggesting a role for the development of episodic memory in monitoring others' belief states.
Article #18-03505: "Retrospective attribution of false beliefs in 3-year-old children," by Ildiko Király, Katalin Oláh, Gergely Csibra, and Ágnes Kovács.
MEDIA CONTACT: Ildiko Király, Eötvös Lorand University, Budapest, HUNGARY; tel: +36209569732; e-mail: kiralyi@caesar.elte.hu
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences