ABSTRACT
Theory Theory is different. The shift in children’s social understanding at 4 years is taken to be because children begin to understand mental representation. The false belief task requires an understanding of misrepresentation, which is a critical test of proper understanding because it creates a mismatch between a belief and the state of the world that it represents. However, a concept of representation need not be limited to mental representation: In principle the same insights can be applied to nonmental representation. In Perner’s version of Theory Theory, this is an explicit claim: What develops is an understanding of representation as such. It predicts that equivalent representational puzzles will be solved for belief, for language and for pictorial representation at the same time. This would mean that theory of mind marks a much more general development. In our culture, photographs, paintings and drawings are ubiquitous, as are writing and speech. Children may start to properly understand these at around 4 years too.
