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Labelling Improves False Belief Understanding. A Training Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2013

Elisabet Serrat Sellabona ,
Carles Rostan Sánchez ,
Eduard Vallès Majoral ,
Moisès Esteban Guitart ,
Francesc Sidera Caballero  and
Jèssica Serrano Ortiz
Elisabet Serrat Sellabona*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Girona (Spain)
Carles Rostan Sánchez
Affiliation:
Universidad de Girona (Spain)
Eduard Vallès Majoral
Affiliation:
Universidad de Girona (Spain)
Moisès Esteban Guitart
Affiliation:
Universidad de Girona (Spain)
Francesc Sidera Caballero
Affiliation:
Universidad de Girona (Spain)
Jèssica Serrano Ortiz
Affiliation:
Universidad de Girona (Spain)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Elisabet Serrat Sellabona. Departamento de Psicología. Universidad de Girona. Pl. Sant Domènec, 9. 17071 Girona (Spain). Phone: +34–972418754. Fax: +34–972418315. E-mail: elisabet.serrat@udg.edu
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Abstract

A total of 104 children aged between 41 and 47 months were selected to study the relationship between language and false belief understanding. Participants were assigned to four different training conditions: discourse, labelling, control (all with deceptive objects), and sentential complements (involving non-deceptive objects). Post-test results showed an improvement in children’s false belief understanding in the discourse and the labelling conditions, but not in the sentential complements with non-deceptive objects or the control group. Furthermore, the most remarkable improvement in false belief understanding occurred in the labelling group. These results suggest that some types of linguistic experience promote the development of false belief understanding, provided that differing perspectives are confronted.

Keywords

theory of mindfalse belieflanguagetraining study
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 16 , 2013 , E6
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2013 

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Footnotes

This research was partially supported by a grant from Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (SEJ2006–12039) and a grant from the Universidad de Girona (SING2010B/9). The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the paper.

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