Children's understanding of preexisting differences in knowledge and belief

A basic developmental task fur children is to understand how people may dif fer in what they know and believe. Some such differences stem from situatio nally provided contrasts in immediate information; others reflect more perv asive, naturally occurring variations in thoughts and beliefs. This article reviews research relevant to children's understanding of the second form o f cognitive difference. The paradigms reviewed include false belief, origin s of knowledge, ambiguity, explicit judgments of knowledge, communication, and information seeking; the target contrasts include self vs other, younge r vs older, and familiar vs unfamiliar. This article identifies development al changes for each of the forms of understanding, with impressive early co mpetence in some instances and surprisingly protracted development in other s. It is argued that a consideration of preexisting differences in belief p rovides an important complement to the situational emphases that have chara cterized theory-of-mind research, extending both the range of beliefs exami ned and the scope of developmental changes identified. (C) 2000 Academic Pr ess.