DEVELOPING THEORIES OF MIND - UNDERSTANDING CONCEPTS AND RELATIONS BETWEEN MENTAL ACTIVITIES

The purpose of the study was to expand our knowledge of older children 's understanding of the unique features and potential relations existi ng among mental activities. 8- and 10-year-olds as well as adults were asked to rate the similarity of pairs of mental activity scenarios in terms of how their mind would be used for each one. The scenarios inv olved primarily Prospective Memory, List Memory, Recognition Memory, C omprehension, Inference, Planning, Comparison, or Selective Attention. There was a developing tendency to organize mental activities on the degree to which memory was a component of the activity. Several distin ctions were also more likely to be made with age: the distinction betw een recall and recognition, the distinction between the roles of inter nal and external cues in mediating cognitive activity, and the distinc tion among the various roles of attentional processes in regulating in put from the sensory world. Together, these findings suggest that a co nstructivist theory of mind develops in later childhood.