Young children's understanding of interpretation, expectation and direct perception as sources of false belief

Two experiments investigated children's understanding that mistaken beliefs may arise through misinterpretation of ambiguous information. In Expt 1, 4- and 5-year-olds accurately attributed false beliefs based on direct perception, but did not attribute false beliefs based on inferential or interpretive processes. Experiment 2 compared children's ability to predict another person's interpretation with children's ability to explain another person's interpretation after the fact. Although 4-year-olds often provided valid explanations, 7-year-olds were more likely than 4-year-olds to refer to another person's previous experiences to explain the person's interpretation References to previous experiences were positively correlated with the ability to predict another person's interpretation These results support the view that understanding false belief and understanding interpretive activity are distinct conceptual acquisitions.