Article
The development of representations of pretend object substitutions
The Journal of Genetic Psychology
(2016)
Abstract
Many theories of how pretense is mentally represented have been posited, but none have been effectually empirically tested to date. This research is the first to explore how children and adults mentally process simple pretend actions, specifically pretend object substitutions, and whether this representation changes with age. Preschoolers, older children, and undergraduates heard or read about a variety of pretend object substitutions, and their reaction time to name an image related to the object’s real identity, pretend identity, or an unrelated image was measured. To test what is unique to pretense, these reaction times were compared to those from participants who responded to the same images after reading about non-pretend versions of the same actions. Results suggest that preschoolers inhibit reality when representing a pretend action, older children activate an object’s real and pretend identities equally, and adults activate the object’s real identity more than the pretend one. Implications for current theories of pretense representation are discussed.
Keywords
- representation,
- pretense,
- inhibition,
- naming
Disciplines
Publication Date
August 23, 2016
DOI
10.1080/00221325.2016.1211603
Citation Information
Jennifer Van Reet. "The development of representations of pretend object substitutions" The Journal of Genetic Psychology Vol. 177 Iss. 5 (2016) p. 131 - 142 ISSN: 0022-1325 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/jennifer-vanreet/4/