ON THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN FALSE BELIEF UNDERSTANDING AND SUBSCRIBINGTO AN INTERPRETIVE THEORY OF MIND

2 groups of 5-8-year-olds were examined in an effort to explore the de veloping relations between false belief understanding and an awareness of the individualized nature of personal taste, on the one hand, and, on the other, a maturing grasp of the interpretive character of the k nowing process. In Study 1, 20 children between 5 and 8 all behaved in accordance with hypotheses by proving to be indistinguishable in thei r already good grasp of the possibility of false beliefs and in their common assumption that differences of opinion concerning matters of ta ste are legitimate expressions of personal preferences. By contrast, o nly the 7- and 8-year-old children gave evidence of recognizing that a mbiguous stimuli especially allow for warrantable differences of inter pretation. Study 2 replicated and extended these findings with a group of 48 5-8-year-old subjects, again showing that while 5-year-olds eas ily pass a standard test of false belief understanding, only children of 7 or 8 ordinarily evidence an appreciation of the interpretive char acter of the knowing process.