YOUNG CHILDREN'S UNDERSTANDING OF IMAGINATION

这项拟议的研究涉及儿童健康的一个基本方面 认知和社会发展--他们对心灵的理解。 对心灵的理解在发挥作用的能力中起着至关重要的作用 作为有效的社会存在。却没有理解到其他人 精神状态，比如信仰和想法，人们将无法 理智地交流和互动。拟议的工作将审查一个 这一理解的重要但尚未探索的方面--儿童 关于想象力的知识。儿童对想象力的理解是 学习很重要，有几个原因。首先，作为伪装的组成部分， 它是一种探索成人经历和 身份。其次，最近的理论化使想象力在 出现了对人类行为的理解。最后，对于成年人来说 和儿童，想象力是许多创造性思维和 新的发现。 尽管理解想象力很重要，但这个问题 在关于儿童心理理解的研究中一直被忽视。多数 研究主要集中在儿童对认知的理解方面 心理状态--那些心理状态，比如信仰，起源于 与物理现实直接互动，并声称代表现实 老实说。然而，从研究中得出的结论更广泛， 包括儿童对表象心理状态的理解 一般说来。这引发了几个关于儿童的重要问题 对虚构心理表征的理解--那些心理状态， 就像想象力一样，具有代表性，但并不意味着 准确地表现现实。建议的研究将检视 幼儿对虚构心理理解的发展 想象的状态。该建议针对三个方面的问题：(L) 儿童对想象之间的对应关系的理解是什么 和物质现实呢？(2)儿童的能力有差异吗？ 关于虚构VS的多重表征的构想 认知心理状态，以及(3)儿童对认知心理状态的理解 想象力和其他心理状态的起源？这些问题的答案 将填补我们对儿童理解的一个空白 具体地说是想象力，并将有助于开发更全面的 更广泛地说，关于儿童对心灵的理解的理论。

The proposed research addresses a fundamental aspect of children's cognitive and social development -- their understanding of the mind. Understanding of the mind plays a critical role in the ability to function as effective social beings. Without an understanding that others have mental states, like beliefs and ideas, people would be unable to communicate and interact sensibly. The proposed work will examine an important yet unexplored aspect of this understanding -- children's knowledge about imagination. Children's understanding of imagination is important to study for several reasons. First, as a component of pretense, it serves as a vehicle for exploration of adult experiences and identities. Second, recent theorizing grants imagination a central role in the emergence of an understanding of human behavior. Finally, for adults and children, imagination serves as a source of much creative thinking and new discoveries. Despite the importance of an understanding of imagination, this question has been neglected in research on children's understanding of mind. Most studies have focused on aspects of children's understanding of epistemic mental states -- those mental states, like beliefs, that originate in direct interaction with physical reality and purport to represent reality truthfully. The conclusions drawn from the research are broader, however, encompassing children's understanding of representational mental states generally. This raises several important questions about children's understanding of fictional mental representations--those mental states, like imagination, that are representational, but do not purport to represent reality accurately. The proposed studies will examine the development of young children's understanding of the fictional mental state of imagination. The proposal addresses questions in three areas: (l) what is children's understanding of the correspondence between imagination and physical reality? (2) are there differences in children's ability to conceive of multiple representations with regard to fictional versus epistemic mental states, and (3) what do children understand about the origin of imagination and other mental states? Answers to these questions will fill a gap in our knowledge of children's understanding of imagination specifically, and will aide in developing more comprehensive theories about children's understanding of the mind more generally.