¿Es posible dar cuenta de mindreading temprano sin ninguna noción de creencia? / Is it possible to account for mindreading without a notion of belief?

Según las arquitecturas de doble sistema (Apperly & Butterfill 2009; Butterfill & Apperly 2013a), el sistema flexible (SF), a cargo de mindreading completamente desarrollado, operaría sobre actitudes proposicionales (AP), mientras que el sistema eficiente (SE), a cargo de mindreading temprano, operaría sobre registros. Intentaré mostrar que no se establece un criterio claro de distinción entre los dos sistemas ya que, por distintas razones, no se descarta el procesamiento eficiente de creencias. Luego, brindaré una caracterización de los registros que los distinga de las creencias. Si los registros se vehiculan en mapas, mientras que las AP se vehiculan en oraciones, los SE y SF tendrían estructuras conceptuales diferentes. De esta manera se podría distinguir entre sistemas y postular una arquitectura dual para mindreading, sin las dificultades que presenta la propuesta de Apperly y colegas. (AU)

Two system architectures (Apperly & Butterfill 2009, Butterfill & Apperly 2013a) postulate a flexible system (FS) that enables full-blown mindreading and operates on propositional attitudes (PA), and an efficient system (ES) that enables early mindreading and operates on registers. Firstly, the author suggests that a clear criterion to distinguish between systems is not presented since, for different reasons, the possibility of efficient processing of beliefs is not ruled out. Then, a characterization which differentiates registers from beliefs is presented. If registers are conveyed in maps whilst PA are conveyed in sentences, the conceptual structure of ES and FS will be different. Accordingly, it would be possible to distinguish between systems and postulate a two system architecture without the difficulties presented by the Apperly's and colleague's proposal.(AU)

Comprensión social y lenguaje: ¿dos dominios? / Social Comprehension and Language: Two Domains?

Desde su incursión en 1983, las Teorías Infantiles de la Mente han sido una fuente que ha nutrido las discusiones sobre el desarrollo de la comprensión social. Recientemente, se han vinculado un número creciente de estudios que buscan indagar por el papel que cumple el lenguaje en cada uno de sus dominios y los investigadores han encontrado conexiones interesantes tanto en los aspectos sintácticos como en los aspectos semánticos y pragmáticos. El objeto del presente estudio de revisión es indagar por esa fecunda relación a fin de proponer algunas rutas y vías de interés para investigadores que tienen en los niños su principal foco de atención, así como, para los educadores y todos aquellos profesionales que han encontrado útil el aporte de las indagaciones sobre cognición social y lenguaje.

From their incursion in 1983 the Children Theories of the Mind have been a source that has nourished the discussions on the development of the social understanding. Recently, there are tie an increasing number of studies that they look for to investigate by the paper that fulfills the language in each of its dominions and the investigators have found interesting connections as much in the syntactic aspects as in the semantic and pragmatic aspects. The object of the present study of revision is to investigate by that fecund relation in order to propose some routes and routes of interest for investigators whom its main center of attention has in the children, as well as, to the educators and all those professionals who have found the contribution of the investigations on social cognition and language useful.

Teoría de la mente en tareas de falsa creencia y producción narrativa en preescolares: investigaciones contemporáneas / Teoria da mente em tarefas de falsa crença e produção narrativa em pré-escolares: investigações contemporâneas / Theory of mind in false belief tasks and narrative production in preschoolers: contemporary research

Este artículo presenta una reflexión sobre el desarrollo de la producción narrativa y el de la teoría de la mente en la etapa preescolar. En cada campo se plantean sus bases conceptuales, reportes y evidencias investigativas. Se muestra que en la producción narrativa los niños adquieren de manera relativamente tardía en su primera infancia las primeras habilidades que les permiten organizar una narración para contarla a otros. Se señala, además, que el desarrollo de la teoría de la mente está relacionado con el del lenguaje, aunque se cuenta con menos estudios sobre su relación con la producción narrativa. Se identifica la necesidad de un marco integrador de las explicaciones de las variantes conceptuales y metodológicas planteadas en esta reflexión.

The paper conducts a reflection on the development of narrative production and the theory of mind at preschool level. Conceptual bases, reports, and research evidence were provided for each field. The study shows that children acquire the abilities to organize a narrative relatively late in early childhood, and that the development of the theory of mind is related to that of language, though there are few studies on its relation to narrative production. The study suggests the need for a framework that integrates the conceptual and methodological variations postulated in the reflection presented.

Este artigo apresenta uma reflexão sobre o desenvolvimento da produção narrativa e da teoria da mente na etapa pré-escolar. Em cada campo são usadas bases conceituais, registros e evidências investigativas. Mostra-se que na produção narrativa, as crianças adquirem de maneira relativamente tardia na primeira infância, as habilidades iniciais que lhes permitem organizar uma narração para contá-la a outros. ademais se assinala que o desenvolvimento da teoria da mente está relacionado com o da linguagem, embora existam menos estudos sobre sua relação com a produção narrativa. Identifica-se a necessidade de um marco integrador das explicações das variantes conceituais e metodológicas propostas nesta reflexão.

Falsa creencia y desarrollo semántico del lenguaje en niños de 2 a 4 años / False belief and semantic language development in children aged 2 to 4 years

Se presentan los resultados de un estudio realizado con una muestra de 116 niños y niñas, con edades entre los 2 y los 4 años, de las ciudades de Bogotá y Chía, en donde se intenta explorar y caracterizar las relaciones existentes entre el desarrollo de la comprensión de las teorías infantiles de la mente y el desarrollo semántico del lenguaje. Para ello, se utilizaron tres versiones de la tarea de la falsa creencia digitalizadas mediante la aplicación Flash y la adaptación al castellano de la batería de evaluación de desarrollo temprano del lenguaje (Hresko et al., 1981) para evaluar las habilidades semánticas del lenguaje. Los hallazgos señalan diferencias significativas entre las edades, en términos de su nivel de desempeño para cada una de las tareas, así como las asociaciones positivas entre comprensión social y desarrollo semántico del lenguaje, para dos de las tres tareas propuestas. Los hallazgos se interpretan en el marco de la propuesta interaccionista desarrollada por Wellman (1994)...

We intended to explore and characterize the relationships between the development of understanding childhood theories of mind and the semantic development of language. We used three versions of the false belief task, programmed with Flash, and the Early Language Development Battery in order to assess semantic abilities in 116 children aged two to four years. Significant differences among ages were found for task performance, and positive associations between social comprehension and language development were found in two tasks. Results were interpreted through the interaction proposal by Wellman (1994)...

Interacciones entre el entendimiento de la falsa-creencia y el desarrollo de la habilidad verbal: Diferencias entre los sexos en edad preescolar / Interactions between false-belief understanding and verbal ability development: Sex differences in preschool children

En este artículo se analiza el desempeño de niños y niñas en la resolución de tareas de falsa-creencia y se explora la posible influencia del desarrollo de las habilidades verbales sobre las diferencias de rendimiento entre ambos sexos en dichas tareas. El trabajo incluye dos estudios: En el Estudio 1 se comparó el entendimiento de la falsa-creencia y la habilidad verbal de 17 niños y 17 niñas costarricenses de 5 años, con el entendimiento de la falsa-creencia y de la habilidad verbal de 17 niños y 17 niñas costarricenses de 6 años de edad. Para el Estudio 2, los mismos participantes del grupo de 5 años del Estudio 1 fueron reevaluados después de un período de 3 meses. En el Estudio 1, el grupo de niñas de 6 años evidenció un desempeño significativamente mayor que el grupo de niñas de 5 años, tanto en el índice de habilidad verbal como en el entendimiento de la falsa-creencia. En contraste, entre los niños de 5 y 6 años solo se encontró un incremento no significativo en los puntajes de ambas variables. Luego de reevaluar a los participantes de 5 años, el Estudio 2 confirmó estas diferencias entre ambos sexos y verificó que los incrementos entre ambas variables son mutuamente dependientes. Los hallazgos principales de ambos estudios señalan diferencias significativas en el desarrollo cognitivo de los preescolares según su sexo. La relevancia de los resultados se discute en el contexto del debate actual sobre las interacciones entre la habilidad verbal y la teoría de la mente durante la edad preescolar.

The purpose of this article is to analyze some developmental interactions between cognitive processes during the preschool period. In specific, we are interested in the interactions between verbal ability and false-belief understanding. The research explores the performance of boys and girls in the execution of false-belief tasks, and evaluates the possible influence of verbal ability development on the sex differences in the falsebelief scores. In recent times, the emphasis on the sex differences in this dimension of social cognition has been an important issue stemming from the results of current lines of research. The present work is divided in two studies. The Study 1 compares the false-belief understanding and verbal ability of 17 five-year-olds Costa Rican boys and 17 five-year-olds Costa Rican girls, with the false-belief understanding and verbal ability of 17 six-year-olds Costa Rican boys and 17 six-year-olds Costa Rican girls. The main interest of this first study is focused on the identification of interactions between the cognitive processes of the participants. Sub sequently, in Study 2, the same five-year-olds that participated in Study 1 were reevaluated through the same measures after a period of 3 months. The goal of this second study was to follow up the tendencies evidenced in the previous study, after a brief period of time. As an attempt to capture specific details in the development of these processes and given the recommendations of previous works, an interval of 3 months between measures was used here for the first time in the context of this line of research. All the participants were students from a public preschool in the capital city of Costa Rica and native speakers of the Spanish language. Additional inclusion criteria take into account the absence of developmental disorders and other antecedents of psychiatric / psychological intervention. The assessment of false- belief understanding was through a battery that includes four different false-belief tasks. This battery was conformed by 3 first order false-belief tasks, and one second order false-belief task. For the assessment of verbal ability, the study includes 4 subtests (Information, Arithmetic, Vocabulary, and Comprehension) from the WPPSI-III Verbal Ability Scale. The results of the Study 1 evidenced that the six-year-olds girls had significantly higher scores than the five-year-olds girls, both in verbal ability and in false-belief understanding. Interestingly, the improvements in both abilities were mutually dependent. In contrast, the scores at the same variables showed a small but not significant improvement between five and six-year-olds boys. In Study 2, our results confirm these sex differences through the reassessment of the same five-year-olds, and verify that the improvements in both abilities are mutually dependent. The main results of both studies highlights important sex differences in the cognitive development of preschool children. In both studies the false-belief understanding and verbal ability improve significantly in girls but not in boys. The implications of our data are discussed in the context of the actual debate about the interaction between verbal ability and theory of mind during the preschool years. The possible influences of different socialization processes associated with a particular gender are discussed, as well as other tentative mediating factors like the empathic abilities or the influence produced by the context of different daily play scenarios among boys and girls. Research limitations like the particular period of assessment between measures in the Study 2 or the necessity of more tasks for each construct are also discussed. Finally, tentative mechanisms that could account for our data are considered.