ABSTRACT
Our interest in comparing the cognitive processes involved in playing pretend and pondering possibilities is that we think by mastering the former, children become better able to do the latter. They begin to competently ‘play’ with a particularly interesting set of false states of affairs-possible ones. By possibilities we mean unactualised states of affairs that are capable of happening, existing, or being true without contradicting proven facts, laws, or circumstances. Typically, possibilities are contrasted to actualities which are states of affairs that are known or believed to be real and true.
