Thinking about mental states:
A great deal of research has established that between 2 and 8 years of age children learn many things about people’s (others and their own) mental states: wants and needs; feelings and emotions; beliefs and opinions; and processes of learning, memory and attention. We have done several studies showing that at 5 and 6 years, children are still mastering some subtle aspects of mental states.
Relevant Publications
Guan, Y., Deák, G. O., Huangfu, B., & Xu, Z. (in press). Perspective‐taking and gift‐giving in Chinese preschool children. Social Development.
Liao, Y., Li, H., & Deák, G.O. (2011). Can unpredicted outcomes be intended? The role of outcome-beliefs in children’s judgments of intention. Cognitive Development, 26, 106-117.
Jao, R.J., Robledo, M., & Deák, G.O. (2010). The emergence of referential gaze and perspective-taking in infants. Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 284-289.
Zhang, T., Zheng, X., Zhang, L., Shu, W., Deák, G.O. & Li, H. (2010). Older Children’s misunderstanding of uncertain belief after passing the false belief task. Cognitive Development, 25, 158-165.
Deák, G.O. (2006). Do children really confuse appearance and reality? TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 546-550.