Goal attribution toward non-human objects during infancy predicts imaginary companion

It has been shown that there is a significant relationship between children’s mentalizing skills and creation of an imaginary companion (IC). For example, Giménez-Dasí et al. (2014) reported that children with IC performed better on false belief and emotion understanding tasks than those without IC. Theorists have proposed that interaction with an IC may improve mentalizing skills. Harris (2000) argued that role play may improve children’s simulation skills, and such skills may facilitate mentalizing. The simulation view is supported by recent longitudinal evidence that children’s IC status at 3 years of age predicts better performance on false belief tasks (Lillard & Kavanaugh, 2014). However, an alternative view is that early mentalizing skills may affect the IC status during preschool years. The view is inspired by evidence that the frequency of parental mental-state language during infancy predicts children’s IC status in their preschool years (Motoshima, et al., 2014). According to this view, children who are better at mentalizing may create ICs (Moriguchi & Shinohara, 2012). The present study examined whether infants’ goal attributions about other people and non-human objects predicted their IC status at preschool age. In this longitudinal study, children participated in the study when they were younger than 1 years old (Time 1) and when they were 48 months old (Time 2).

研究表明，儿童的心理理论技能与想象同伴（IC）的产生之间存在显著关系。例如，希门尼斯 - 达西等人（2014年）报告称，有想象同伴的儿童在错误信念和情绪理解任务上的表现优于没有想象同伴的儿童。理论家提出，与想象同伴的互动可能会提高心理理论技能。哈里斯（2000年）认为，角色扮演可能会提高儿童的模拟技能，而这些技能可能有助于心理理论的发展。这种模拟观点得到了近期纵向研究证据的支持，即儿童3岁时的想象同伴状况能够预测其在错误信念任务中的更好表现（利拉德和卡瓦诺，2014年）。然而，另一种观点认为，早期的心理理论技能可能会影响学龄前儿童的想象同伴状况。这一观点是受到以下证据的启发：婴儿期父母使用心理状态语言的频率能够预测儿童在学龄前的想象同伴状况（本岛等人，2014年）。根据这一观点，心理理论能力更强的儿童可能会创造想象同伴（森口和筱原，2012年）。本研究考察了婴儿对他人和非人类物体的目标归因是否能够预测他们在学龄前的想象同伴状况。在这项纵向研究中，儿童在小于1岁时（时间1）和48个月大时（时间2）参与了研究。