DATE: Thursday, April 27th at 12:40-13:30
LOCATION: A 130, FEASS
Dear Bilkent colleagues and students,
Please join us for the second of TWO talks from Dr. Marco Fenici (PhD in Philosophy and Cognitive Science) from the University of Florence: “How children approach the false belief test: Social development, pragmatics, and the assembly of ToM”
Thank you,
Jedediah Allen, Ali Khatibi & Nazim Keven (PSYC & PHIL Colloquium
Committees)
“How children approach the false belief test: Social development, pragmatics, and the assembly of ToM”
ABSTRACT
I argue that children’s success in (elicited-response) false belief tests depends on the connection of their initially scattered understanding of the practical commitments associated with the verbal ascription of beliefs. Accordingly, children’s active engagement with conversation about mental states is the critical factor promoting their acquisition of the capacity to succeed in the false belief test. The proposed view accounts better than the received alternatives not only for the capacities but also the limits beyond younger children’s acquisition of the so-called Theory of Mind—i.e., psychological understanding.