TY - JOUR
T1 - Invited Commentary
T2 - Interpreting failed replications of early false-belief findings: Methodological and theoretical considerations
AU - Baillargeon, Renée
AU - Buttelmann, David
AU - Southgate, Victoria
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - There are now over 30 published reports, spanning 11 different methods, providing convergent evidence for false-belief understanding in children ages 6–36 months (for a review, see Scott & Baillargeon, 2017). The negative findings reported in this special issue of Cognitive Development are inconsistent with this body of data, and the aim of this commentary is to try to shed some light on the discrepancies between studies. We examine the negative findings reported with violation-of-expectation tasks (written by R. Baillargeon), interactive tasks (written by D. Buttelmann), and anticipatory-looking tasks (written by V. Southgate). In many cases, procedural differences between studies may explain failures to replicate. In other cases, apparent participant motivation and attention differences may be important in explaining failures, raising doubts about the utility of some paradigms to elicit the behaviors on which they rely. Our hope is that this commentary will provide a useful analysis that will inform the design of future studies in order that a higher level of replication can be achieved.
AB - There are now over 30 published reports, spanning 11 different methods, providing convergent evidence for false-belief understanding in children ages 6–36 months (for a review, see Scott & Baillargeon, 2017). The negative findings reported in this special issue of Cognitive Development are inconsistent with this body of data, and the aim of this commentary is to try to shed some light on the discrepancies between studies. We examine the negative findings reported with violation-of-expectation tasks (written by R. Baillargeon), interactive tasks (written by D. Buttelmann), and anticipatory-looking tasks (written by V. Southgate). In many cases, procedural differences between studies may explain failures to replicate. In other cases, apparent participant motivation and attention differences may be important in explaining failures, raising doubts about the utility of some paradigms to elicit the behaviors on which they rely. Our hope is that this commentary will provide a useful analysis that will inform the design of future studies in order that a higher level of replication can be achieved.
KW - False-belief understanding
KW - Implicit false-belief task
KW - Replication
KW - Theory of mind
U2 - 10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.06.001
DO - 10.1016/j.cogdev.2018.06.001
M3 - Review
AN - SCOPUS:85049060628
SN - 0885-2014
VL - 46
SP - 112
EP - 124
JO - Cognitive Development
JF - Cognitive Development
ER -