ABSTRACT
Over the preschool years, young children develop an explicit “representational theory of mind” (RTM)—an understanding that mental states are representations, the contents of which are related to but also distinct from the real situations they represent. Research using the false-belief task (a widely accepted litmus test for explicit RTM understanding), has shown that children all over the world show a remarkably similar timetable for RTM development, with the achievement usually coming between children’s fourth and fifth birthdays (Callaghan et al., 2005). The only exceptions to universal RTM competence have been seen in instances of brain injury (Apperly, Samson, Chiavarino, & Humphreys, 2004) or neurodevelopmental disability, such as autism (Baron-Cohen, 2005) , in which RTM reasoning seems to be particularly impaired. Together, these findings raise the possibility that RTM development is paced, at least in part, by relatively specific neurological developments unfolding in the preschool years.
