Eighteen-month-olds' memory interference and distraction in a modified A-not-B task is not associated with their anticipatory looking in a false-belief task

Infants' performance in non-verbal false-belief tasks is often interpreted as if they have understood false beliefs. This view has been questioned by a recent account that explains infants' performance in non-verbal false-belief tasks as the result of susceptibility to memory interference...

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Published inFrontiers in psychology Vol. 6; p. 857
Main Authors Zmyj, Norbert, Prinz, Wolfgang, Daum, Moritz M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Switzerland Frontiers Media S.A 22.06.2015
Subjects
distraction
false belief task
Infancy
Inhibitory Control
memory interference
Psychology
memory interference
infancy
distraction
inhibitory control
false belief task
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Summary:Infants' performance in non-verbal false-belief tasks is often interpreted as if they have understood false beliefs. This view has been questioned by a recent account that explains infants' performance in non-verbal false-belief tasks as the result of susceptibility to memory interference and distraction. We tested this alternative account by investigating the relationship between infants' false-belief understanding, susceptibility to memory interference and distraction, and general cognitive development in 18-month-old infants (N = 22). False-belief understanding was tested in an anticipatory looking paradigm of a standard false-belief task. Susceptibility to memory interference and distraction was tested in a modified A-not-B task. Cognitive development was measured via the Mental Scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. We did not find any relationship between infants' performance in the false-belief task and the A-not-B task, even after controlling for cognitive development. This study shows that there is no ubiquitous relation between susceptibility to memory interference and distraction and performance in a false-belief task in infancy.
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Edited by: Daniela Corbetta, University of Tennessee, USA
Reviewed by: Yuyan Luo, University of Missouri, USA; Claudia I. Thoermer, Ludwig Maximilian University, Germany
This article was submitted to Developmental Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
ISSN:1664-1078
1664-1078
DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00857