Until a few decades ago, researchers believed that young children knew little or no understanding of what their peers were thinking. Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget is considered the founder of the scientific study of children's thinking. Based on his research, Piaget was convinced that preschoolers could not understand the thoughts of others.
To him, small children seem completely unaware that different people may have different views or perspectives on the world, and even their own views may change over time.
Many later studies of early childhood thinking were heavily influenced by Piaget's ideas and research methods. Perfecting his theories and truly confirming his conclusions is the goal of scholars. Still, it's becoming increasingly clear that Piaget is missing something important.
He seems to have grossly underestimated the intellectual abilities of young children — before they can express themselves in words, or even take thoughtful action to make themselves understood. Since then, researchers have devised more ingenious ways to determine the baby's brain activity, and the resulting images of the baby's abilities have become more nuanced.
Change your mind
In the second half of the 20th century, there was a shift in ideology about the origin of human knowledge, which provided some impetus for revising some of Piaget's conclusions. In recent years, the increasingly unpopular view is that a basic understanding of the world can be gained through personal experience alone.
As the theorist Noam Chomsky has pointed out, something as complex as grammatical rules cannot be learned by exposure to language, but must be provided by an innate "language ability." This has contributed to some extent to the development of this concept. Others have followed suit, defining additional "core areas" where, according to some, knowledge cannot be pieced together from experience, but must be innate. One such area is our understanding of the thoughts of others.
Amazing and innovative investigative tools
Researchers need to come up with novel ways to prove that babies have more knowledge of this than the scientific community previously thought. An important factor in our current understanding of children's intelligence is the development of more sensitive research tools than piagher's research.
In order to engage young children in conversation or ask them to perform complex motor tasks, newer methods take advantage of behaviors already established in the infant's natural behavioral system, such as seeing, listening, and sucking; Facial expressions: facial expressions and gestures; as well as simple manual movements (as opposed to complex motor tasks).
The purpose of paying attention to these "little behaviors" is to give children the opportunity to implicitly and spontaneously demonstrate their knowledge during the learning process without having to respond to questions or instructions. For example, children may spend longer watching what they didn't expect to happen, or they may make facial expressions that indicate they are sympathizing with others, among other things.
Recent research reveals what
Recent studies have shown that even infants and young children are sensitive to the thoughts of parents and caregivers.
A series of experiments conducted by me and my colleagues at the University of Southern California have shown that toddlers can even predict how they will feel when other people's expectations are not met. In front of a group of two-year-olds, we performed some puppet shows. In these puppet shows, the protagonist (cookie monster) leaves his most precious thing (cookie) on the stage and then comes back to retrieve it from the audience. Unbeknownst to the protagonist, an opponent has arrived and is interfering with his personal belongings. The children witness these events and keep a close eye on the return of the protagonist.
We recorded the children's facial and body expressions. When the protagonist returns, the children bite their lips, wrinkle their noses, and writhe in their chairs, as if anticipating the confusion and disappointment he himself will experience. It is worth noting that the children did not show such a reaction, and even when the protagonist witnessed the event with his own eyes and knew what to expect, they remained calm. In our research, we found that at the age of two, children were not only able to track what others believed or expected, but they were also able to predict how others would feel when they found reality.
Observations such as these suggest that the brains of toddlers and even babies contain far more information than previously thought. It is impossible to gain insight into these deeper understandings of children with the explicit methods developed by Piaget and his successors. New survey tools show that children know far more than they are able to express themselves.