Ildikó Király

This paper presents evidence that social categorization affects spontaneous level‐2 visual perspective taking (L2PT) differently depending on the type of social category in 8‐year‐old. In Experiment 1 ( N = 46), children were paired with same‐age peers, who belonged to the same or a different minimal group. In Experiment 2 ( N = 42) children participated with an adult confederate, who either shared their cultural group membership or was a member of an out‐group (inferred from a linguistic cue, accent). In Experiment 3 ( N = 80), children were acting together with an adult confederate who was at the same time a member of the same or a different minimal group and shared their linguistic membership. This allowed us to investigate how these social categories influence each other. Spontaneous L2PT was not affected by the minimal group manipulation. However, accent weakened L2PT when it implied that the task partner belonged to an out‐group. When both category cues were present, accent—that could be an indicator of shared knowledge attribution—played a more pronounced role in attenuating L2PT. It is argued that social categories that are indicative of the partner's knowledge states but not ad hoc groups influence spontaneous mentalizing.

The present study examined whether three‐year‐old children (age = 42–48 months, n = 57; 31 boys) understand that object identities stipulated during pretend play could only be known by people witnessing the stipulation. Children participated in pretend scenarios that included some objects and two experimenters. Two pretend episodes corresponded to an object: one connected to its conventional function, the other to a pretend identity made‐up on the spot. These episodes happened either in the presence or absence of the other person. In the test phase, this experimenter expressed an intention to do something with an object and asked for a ‘missing’ prop. The prediction was that in case she was present previously, children would be more likely to select the prop corresponding to a pretence stipulation, compared to when she was absent. The results confirmed this pattern: in the absent condition, 68.42% of the participants chose the prop connected to the conventional use of the object, while 31.58% chose the prop corresponding to its identity stipulated in pretend play. It seems that preschool aged children refrain from generalizing their knowledge about the pretend identity of an object, in case their interactive partner could not know of this identity.

What makes agents fundamentally different from each other from the viewpoint of a 10‐month‐old infant? While infants at this age can already individuate human‐like objects from non‐humanlike ones and self‐propelled agents from inert objects, little is known of when and how they start individuating within the domain of agents. What is clear from previous studies is that differences in surface and dynamic features are not sufficient. We hypothesized that mental properties—in this case the agents' preferences—can serve as an individuating property. In our study, we familiarized infants with two animated agents who had different preferences. The agents sequentially and repeatedly emerged from behind an occluder, and then each agent approached one of two target objects before returning behind the occluder. After familiarization, the occluder was lifted, revealing either one agent or two agents. While infants successfully individuated the agents in the preference‐demonstration condition, they failed to do so in the exposure‐only condition in which perceptually similar surface and dynamic features of the agents were presented but without indicating preferences. Our study thus provides evidence that mental properties can help individuate agents, grounding the claim that infants understand agents as mental entities at their core.