Consciousness and control: The argument from developmental psychology

Limitations of Dienes & Perner's (D&P's) theory are traced to the assumptio n that the higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness is true. D&P claim that 18-month-old children are capable of explicitly representing fac tuality, from which it follows (on D&P's theory) that they are capable of e xplicitly representing content, attitude, and self. D&P then attempt to exp lain 3-year-olds' failures on tests of voluntary control such as the dimens ional change card sort by suggesting that at this age children cannot repre sent content and attitude explicitly. We provide a better levels-of-conscio usness account for age-related abulic dissociations between knowledge and a ction.