幼児期における心の理論・実行機能とロールテイキングの関連

Abstract

We developed a new task for preschoolers to confirm their ability to engage in role-taking. Thirty-seven children were tested using a false-belief task, the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS; attentional flexibility), the Happy-Sad task (inhibitory control), and the role-taking task. We found that enacting role-taking was significantly more difficult than predicting what the puppet would say. Irrespective of the child's role-taking condition, correlations showed that the first-order false-belief task and the Happy-Sad inhibition task were related to DCCS performance. The relationship between false belief and inhibition was not significant in this Japanese sample. Multiple regression analysis was used to identify the predictors of role-taking ability; we found that in the whole sample (and separately in two role-playing subgroups) only Happy-Sad task performance significantly predicted children's ability to take the puppet's perspective. These results suggest that early abilities in understanding another's perspective are determined more by the ability to inhibit a prepotent response than an ability to gauge another's mental states.