Perspective taking and theory of mind: do children predict interpretive diversity as a function of differences in observers' knowledge?

In 3 experiments, children's ability to vary their responses on perspective-taking tasks as a function of the other person's age was examined. In Experiment 1,4- and 5-year-olds were shown to be accurate in their judgments about the knowledge of a 6-month-old baby, a 4-year-old child, and an adult. In Experiment 2, 4-year-olds were asked to determine if a baby, child, and adult would be able to identify an object from a restricted view showing either an identifiable part, a small nondescript part, or no part of the object. Children tended to report that the observer would be able to identify the object from an identifiable or nondescript part. Their judgments were not affected by the age of the observer. Experiment 3 replicated the asymmetry in performance on the general knowledge task and the restricted view task and extended these results by testing 4-year-olds, 6-year-olds, and adults using a within-subjects design.

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