Recently, infants younger than 2 years have been shown to display correct expectations of the actions of an agent with a false belief. The developmental trajectory of these early-developing... Show moreRecently, infants younger than 2 years have been shown to display correct expectations of the actions of an agent with a false belief. The developmental trajectory of these early-developing abilities and their robustness, however, remain a matter of debate. Here, we tested children longitudinally from 2 to 4 years of age with an established anticipatory looking false belief task, and found a significant developmental change between the ages of 3 and 4 years. Children anticipated correctly only by the age of 4 years, and performed at chance at the ages of 2 and 3 years. Moreover, we found correct anticipation only when the agent falsely believed an object to be in its last rather than a previous location. These findings point towards the fragility of early belief-related action anticipation before the age of 4 years, when children start passing traditional false belief tasks. Show less
Human interaction is characterised by an ongoing polyphony of perspectives and perspectives-on-perspectives. Not only do we share and coordinate our own inner life with that of the people we... Show moreHuman interaction is characterised by an ongoing polyphony of perspectives and perspectives-on-perspectives. Not only do we share and coordinate our own inner life with that of the people we interact with, but we also constantly make implicit and explicit reference to the intentional states of others who may or may not be present at the time of speaking, or who may even exist only in the imagined worlds of thought and fiction. In the cognitive sciences, this polyphony has generally been conceptualised as a series of embedded 'orders of intentionality': A thinks that B understands that C expects... (etc.). I argue that this conceptualisation stands in stark contrast to how multiple perspectives are handled in actual discourse and interaction. Based on linguistic and narratological analysis of literary texts, newspaper articles, examples from spoken discourse, and stimuli from psychological experiments investigating multiple-order intentionality in the lab, a new perspective is offered on how we deal with networks of embedded and interlinked intentional states. The findings are discussed in the light of current theories about mindreading (a.k.a. ‘theory of mind’), discussing in particular cognitive models, issues of development and learning, and scenarios of how this capacity may have evolved in our lineage. Show less
This book is about what happens when two people meet. Its main aim is to present an account of intersubjectivity. Most contemporary explanations of intersubjectivity fall into two main categories... Show moreThis book is about what happens when two people meet. Its main aim is to present an account of intersubjectivity. Most contemporary explanations of intersubjectivity fall into two main categories: theory theory and simulation theory. This book seeks to undermine the picture of intersubjectivity taken for granted by these accounts, and instead shows what social sense-making looks like from a pragmatic point of view. It proposes that intersubjectivity is enabled through a large range of second-person practices: (i) embodied practices allow us to employ various innate or early developing capacities that constitute a base-line for social understanding, (ii) embedded practices enable us to understand others within a broader social and pragmatic context, and (iii) narrative practices provide us with stories about self and other in order to further fine-tune and sophisticate our intersubjective interactions. Show less
In this thesis the cognitive strengths and weaknesses have been examined. The results show impairment in advanced theory of mind. Furthermore, impairment was found in processing speed. The results... Show moreIn this thesis the cognitive strengths and weaknesses have been examined. The results show impairment in advanced theory of mind. Furthermore, impairment was found in processing speed. The results pointed to strengths in detailed information processing. No impairment was found in executive functioning Show less
Although institutional care jeopardizes children’s development, some studies suggest that well-functioning child-care institutions may offer children a better environment than their own... Show moreAlthough institutional care jeopardizes children’s development, some studies suggest that well-functioning child-care institutions may offer children a better environment than their own dysfunctional families. For the growing number of HIV-infected children who often live in underprivileged families or institutions, comparative studies on their care arrangements are crucial. In her dissertation Natasha Dobrova-Krol examined the impact of institutional care and HIV-infection on several developmental domains of more than 60 Ukrainian preschoolers. Physical growth, stress regulation, cognitive and social development, as well as organization of attachment and children’s indiscriminately friendly behavior were addressed in this study. Developmental outcomes of HIV-infected children reared in disadvantaged families were compared with the outcomes of children reared in institutions providing adequate medical and physical care. In search for possible risk and protective factors in the development of the children individual characteristics and various aspects of the rearing environment were explored. The findings of this study demonstrated that institutional rearing impeded the development of children in all domains. Both for children with and without HIV family care, even of compromised quality, was better than institutional care, even of good quality. HIV-infection was found to be associated with less favorable outcomes in physical growth and cognitive development. The negative impact of institutional care, however, was larger than the presence of HIV. In three out of six developmental domains that were examined, HIV-infected children reared in disadvantaged families showed significantly better results than both HIV-infected and uninfected children reared in institutions, and no difference was found in the other domains. The quality of the child-caregiver relationship had a larger impact on children’s physical growth and cognitive performance than either HIV-infection or the quality of the physical environment and thus represents an important intervention target. The study has important implications for intervention efforts in child-care institutions. Show less
