Young children's storybooks as a source of mental state information

Ninety children's books (half for 3-4-year-olds and half for 5-6-year-olds) were analyzed for references to mental state in three ways: (a) via words and expressions in the text, (b) via the pictures, and (c) via ironic situa tions. Books for older children were significantly longer than the books fo r younger children, and overall, they included both a higher frequency of m ental state references and a wider variety of such references. However, the rate of textual references to mental state was high for both groups, with a mental state token occurring on average every three sentences in books fo r both age groups. Moreover, the rate at which new types of mental state re ferences appeared was also high; about every second token represented a new type of mental state reference. Pictures typically failed to represent ind ependently the mental state concepts expressed in the text, but pictures an d text together conveyed situational irony in over one-third of the books. Thus, mental state information was largely conveyed via words and irony. Th ese findings suggest that storybook reading may provide even young children with a rich context for developing an understanding of mind. (C) 2000 Else vier Science Inc. All rights reserved.