Development of theory of mind and social cognition through communication

我们的第一项研究考察了儿童评估话语中编码信息可靠性的能力。日本儿童被告知关于隐藏物体位置的两个相互矛盾的陈述。每项陈述都是由不同的人提供的，在语言上标有不同程度的确定性/证据性。然后，孩子们被问及物体的位置，并被要求说出他们是如何得出结论的。结果表明，6到7岁的孩子可以可靠地解释他们是如何知道隐藏物体的位置的，通过参考说话者确定性/证据性的话语或特定的语言标记，更可靠的说话者。5岁的孩子只能通过参考更可靠的说话者的话语来回答源问题。这表明5- 7岁儿童对信念来源的理解出现了从知觉意识到元语言意识的发展转变。相比之下，3到4岁的孩子很难解释为什么他们相信一个说话者而不是另一个，即使他们的选择是正确的。(2)研究反复表明，当被要求根据主人公的错误陈述来识别他的错误信念时，典型的说英语的3岁儿童不理会这个陈述，也不把错误信念归因于他。在我们的第二项研究中，我们对3岁的日本儿童进行了类似的测试，使用虚假陈述伴随着说话者（不确定）的语法化微粒，就像日常的日语话语一样。日本儿童与同龄的德国儿童直接比较，后者的母语没有语法化的认知概念（如英语）。日本儿童对说话人的不同程度的确定性（由语法化的小词表示）很敏感，而德国儿童则不敏感。当主人公的错误信念的明确陈述被标记为确定性的态度时，日本儿童会从中受益。少

(1)Our first study examined children's ability to assess the reliability of information encoded in an utterance. Japanese children were given two contradicting statements about the location of a hidden object. Each statement was provided by a different individual, and was linguistically marked with a different degree of certainty/evidentiality. Children were then questioned about the location of the object and asked to tell how they reached their conclusion. The result demonstrated that 6-to 7-year-olds could reliably explain how they came to know the location of the hidden object, by referring to the utterance or the particular linguistic marking of speaker certainty/evidentiality, of the more reliable speaker. 5-year-olds were only capable of answering the source question by referring to the utterance of more reliable speaker. This indicates a developmental transition from perceptual to metalinguistic awareness in understanding of the sources of belief between 5-to 7-years of age. By … More contrast, 3-to 4-year-olds had great difficulty in explaining why they trusted one speaker over the other, even when their choice was correct.(2)It has been repeatedly shown that when asked to identify a protagonist's false belief on the basis of his false statement, typical English-speaking 3-year-olds dismiss the statement and fail to attribute to him a false belief. In our second study, we tested 3-year-old Japanese children in a similar task, using false statements accompanied by grammaticalized particles of speaker (un-)certainty, as in everyday Japanese utterances. The Japanese children were directly compared with same-aged German children, whose native language does not have grammaticalized epistemic concepts (like English). Japanese children, who are sensitive to different degrees of speaker certainty as indicated by the grammaticalized particles in a way that German children are not, profited from the explicit statement of the protagonist's false belief when it was marked with the attitude of certainty. Less