The role of experience in children's developing folk epistemology: review and analysis from the theory-theory perspective

The role of experience in children's developing folk epistemology, specifically in their acquisition of an understanding of belief, is explored from the theory-theory perspective (i.e., the perspective claiming that children's conceptual development can be viewed as analogous to scientific theory development) through a selective review and analysis of extant empirical literature. Three types of investigations are identified: examinations of observed relationships between social experiences and belief understanding, attempts to facilitate the reasoning of children on the verge of belief understanding through experiences intended to compel children to face reasoning inconsistencies; and training studies demonstrating that children can be trained to understand belief over time through specific feedback experiences. A comparison of these studies reveals that experience is defined differently across them, resulting in varying and sometimes ambiguous implications for a theory-theory perspective on development. Implications for future research are discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.