At what age can children be said to have a theory of mind?

Theory of mind refers to the understanding that other people can have beliefs, desires and
interpretations about the world that are not necessarily the same as are own. False belief
tasks tap this understanding requiring the child to acknowledge and dissociate another’s
beliefs from reality. Dependence on this test as a measure of theory of mind has led to an
underestimation of younger children’s theory of mind. Onishi et al. used a nonverbal
measure to support his claim that infants as young as 15 months demonstrate a theory of
mind, if not yet a fully developed one. Theory of mind does begin to develop before the
age of 4 years old which is inconsistent with performance on false belief tasks. However,
this development is not a sudden shift as the theory-theory proposes. Young children
show theory of mind through deception and nonverbal tasks but fail at false belief tasks
whereas older children show incomplete theory of mind despite their low error rate on
false belief tasks. By 15 months, infants do have at least an implicit theory of mind but its
full development is constrained by cognitive limitations such as the inability to inhibit a
proponent response, the ability to switch between rules (Zelazo, 2000) and hold tasks in
working memory. This is supported by the parallels between performance on executive
function tasks and performance on false belief tasks. Language development also
constrains the development of a theory of mind. The conflicting evidence concerning the
age at which children have a theory of mind requires cautious interpretation and careful
consideration of methodology. The method of testing is particular important as the child’s
performance could be a function of task difficulty. This has been a criticism of various
forms of the false belief task.

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