Doesn't see, doesn't know: is anticipatory looking really related to understanding of belief?

Clements and Perner (Cognitive Development, 9 (1994), 377-397) reported tha t children show, understanding of a story characters belief in their antici patoi-y looking responses before thev show this in their answers to test qu estions. According to Clements and Perner the anticipatory looking response s provide evidence of implicit understanding of belief. This paper examines the possibility that the anticipatory looking measure is indicative of (a) children using a seeing = knowing rule, i.e. children linking not seeing w ith ignorance rather than a sensitivity to belief, or (b) a tendency to ass ociate the protagonist with the left-hand container. Thirty-two children ag ed between 2 years 11 months and 4 years were told a false belief story sim ilar to that used in Clements and Perner (1994) except that three container s were used instead of two. The protagonist first looks inside the middle b ox but then puts the object in the A,,ft-hand box. In his absence, a second character moves the object unexpectedly to the right-hand box. If children 's anticipatory looking was based on sensitivity to belief then they, shoul d have looked clearly to the left-hand box. If it was based on an associati on bias or sensitivity to the character not knowing then they should have l ooked equally to the left-hand and middle boxes. The results were consisten t with the former prediction suggesting that children's anticipatory lookin g responses may indeed be governed by an implicit sensitivity to belief.