ABSTRACT
As a part of the argument supporting our claim, a distinction will be drawn between children’s lower-level processes involved in playing pretend and pondering possibilities (e.g. representing and managing relevant information) and higher-order understanding of such activities (e.g. conceptualising the mind as a representational and interpretative entity). The distinction introduces a second goal of the chapter, that of considering the proper relation between children’s development of lower-level processing and higher-order understanding of mental phenomena. We will review traditional accounts of the development of children’s understanding of mind (i.e. simulation theory and the Theory theory), which propose different views of the relation between the lower-level processing and higher-order understanding of mental phenomena. We will conclude the chapter with an alternative to the traditional views of the development of children’s knowledge of the mind.
