Explicit mentalizing (false-belief understanding) emerges robustly between ages 4 and 6¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · reviewr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2012 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · overdue for a recheck since 2017: baselines and conditions change
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
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q2 i? Performance on false belief tasks, requiring explicit mentalizing, is robustly observed to emerge between 4 and 6 years of age. → Frith Chris D 2012
Evidence¶
Frith Chris D 2012¶
Frith Chris D. (2012). The role of metacognition in human social interactions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2012.0123
q2 · i? · review · r2
The review reports, citing a meta-analysis of theory-of-mind development (Wellman et al., as cited), that false-belief task performance emerges robustly between ages 4 and 6, when children can justify behaviour in terms of knowledge and belief.
"This ability is robustly observed to emerge between the ages of 4 and 6"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Blind and sighted children do not differ in performance on false-belief items of the non-visual ToM task — related
- Backward digit span performance does not emerge until about age 5, whereas forward span is measurable from age 3 — related
- False-belief training improves preschoolers' theory of mind scores but the review reports it has no effect on language skills — related
- RTPJ selectivity correlates with behavioral ToM task performance across blind and sighted children combined — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
explicit-mentalizing-emerges-ages-4-6 |
title |
Explicit mentalizing (false-belief understanding) emerges robustly between ages 4 and 6 |
description |
Explicit mentalizing (false-belief understanding) emerges robustly between ages 4 and 6 |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2012 |
recheck_by |
2017 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-17 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — frith-chris-d-2012 |
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