ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the concept of belief and related concepts, advanced theory of mind development, and the main current theoretical accounts of theory of mind development. It also focuses on the question of what the work on infants' representation of the psychological domain tells us about mental state representation as defined previously by the criteria of inner experience, a mentalistic theory of behavior, and intentionality. The primary focus of theory of mind research has been on the concept of belief. Belief understanding implies an understanding of the relation between a person's access to information, his or her knowledge or belief, and his or her action. The distinction between appearance and reality requires an understanding of mental processes because one's own perception is the source of the apparent identity of the entity. Several longitudinal studies addressed the complex web of conceptual development, language acquisition, and the development of social and cognitive competencies during the preschool and early elementary school years.
