Facilitating children's understanding of misinterpretation: explanatory efforts and improvements in perspective taking

J Genet Psychol. 2002 Jun;163(2):133-48. doi: 10.1080/00221320209598673.

Abstract

The authors investigated children's understanding of how mistaken beliefs can arise through misinterpretation of ambiguous information. Children (N = 91), aged 4 to 5 years, were given pre- and posttests on their ability to infer a puppet's interpretation of a restricted-view drawing after the puppet had been led to an erroneous expectation about the drawing's identity. Before the posttest, the children received either self-explanation training or other-explanation training in which they explained the source of their own or a puppet's misinterpretations of drawings; a control group received no training. The children who received training improved from pre- to posttest, and those who had practiced explaining misinterpretations by referring to previously viewed pictures or to features of a target picture showed the greatest improvement. These results indicate that learning to explain misinterpretations can help children recognize situations in which misinterpretations are likely to occur.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Child, Preschool
  • Concept Formation*
  • Discrimination Learning
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Orientation*
  • Pattern Recognition, Visual*
  • Perceptual Masking*
  • Practice, Psychological
  • Problem Solving*
  • Psychophysics