the relationship between theory of mind and conservation abilities in children using an...

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The Relationship Between Theory of Mindand Conservation Abilities in Children

Using an Active/Inactive Paradigm

Rebecca Mathews, Cheryl Dissanayake and Chris PrattLa Trobe University, Australia

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the development of theory of mind andconservation abilities. A secondary aim explored the development of children's theory of mind and conser-vation abilities using an inactive (standard) and active (modified) paradigm. It was predicted that therewould be an association between the development of conservation and theory of mind abilities, independentof age or verbal ability. The second hypothesis predicted that children would demonstrate superior perfor-mance in the modified versions of these tasks when compared to standard conditions. The participants were78 children aged between 3 years, 3 months and 6 years, 11 months of age who were administered twostandard and two modified false belief tasks and three standard and three modified conservation tasks.Children were divided into a younger group and an older group to examine the age at which tasks werecompleted successfully. No direct association was found between theory of mind and conservation abilities.The findings indicate that any correlation between these cognitive abilities is determined by processesof maturation. There were no significant differences in children's performance on the modified and standardfalse belief tasks. However, both groups performed significantly better in the modified conservation condi-tion when compared to the standard condition. While active involvement in conservation tasks may explainthis difference, changes in context may have also contributed to the effect.

part from documenting the emergence of cognitive abili-ties in early childhood, a major challenge for developmen-

tal researchers is to develop testable explanations of theunderlying mechanisms by which these abilities transpire(Flavell, Green, & Flavell, 1986; Pratt, 1993). Of particularinterest to cognitive theorists is the fact that several abilitieswhich emerge in early childhood appear to rely on a mutualunderlying characteristic: the requirement that the child is ableto appreciate two simultaneous but conflicting realities(Astington & Gopnik, 1991; Flavell et al., 1986; Hogrefe,Wimmer & Perner, 1986; Moore, Pure, & Furrow, 1990;Pemer, Leekam, & Wimmer, 1987; Sullivan & Winner, 1991;Yirmiya & Shulman, 1996).

Many researchers propose that abilities such as the appear-ance-reality distinction, perspective-taking and theory of mind,which rely on this underlying characteristic, mark an emerg-ence of the child's representational conception of the mind(Flavell, 1993; Leslie, 1987; Leslie, 1988; Wellman, 1990).Very young children are considered unable to appreciatethe representational nature of mental states. Flavell (1993)noted that the appearance-reality distinction requires theability to deal with conflicting rather than just alternativemental representations. To test the appearance-reality distinc-tion the child is asked to distinguish between real and apparentobject identities (e.g., a sponge that looks like a rock). It hasbeen widely reported that children begin to understand theappearance-reality distinction at around 4 years of age(Flavell, 1988; Flavell, Flavell & Green, 1983; Flavell et al.,1986; Gopnik & Astington, 1988), when children also developa theory of mind. "Theory of Mind" may be defined as a com-mon sense understanding that oneself and others possessa range of mental states such as beliefs, thoughts and desires,and that these mental states determine behaviour (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985).

Evidence for the development of a theory of mind is tradi-tionally sought through the use of two false belief tasks.

The first of these is Wimmer and Perner's (1983) Maxi task(also known as the "unexpected transfer" task) whichis presented as a vignette using puppets. The first character(Maxi) places his chocolate in Location A, and in his absence,the chocolate is moved to Location B by a second actor. Maxithen returns to eat his chocolate, and children are askedto indicate where Maxi will look for the chocolate. To succeedat this task, children must appreciate that Maxi has a falsebelief and will mentally represent the object as beingin Location A although in reality it exists in Location B.

Apart from attributing a false belief to another person,it is also commonly recognised that attributing a false beliefto oneself is an index of theory of mind ability (Astington &Gopnik, 1991; Moore et al., 1990). The "unexpected contents"task, devised by Hogrefe et al. (1986), investigates false beliefattribution to self as well as to other. In this task the childis shown a confectionery box and asked what will be inside.Having responded that the box contains chocolates(or some equivalent), the child is shown that the box actuallycontains pencils. The child is then asked what he or shethought was in the box prior to opening it (attribution to selfquestion), as well as what someone else (e.g., John), who hasnever seen inside the box, will say is in the box (attributionto other question). Hence, the child personally experiencesa false belief and is asked to report on this before being askedabout another person's false belief. Theory of mind and theappearance-reality distinction which have been foundto develop at around the same age period share the requirementthat children are able to reconcile simultaneous but conflictingrepresentations of reality.

Conservation, which demonstrates a child's understandingthat objects can be transformed to look different, even thoughthe quantitative properties of the object have not altered, alsoincorporates the ability to understand two conflicting represen-tations. That is, children who succeed at conservation are notdeceived by the perceptual qualities of the object in its final

Address for correspondence: Dr Cheryl Dissanayake, School of Psychological Science, La Trobe University, VIC 3086, Australia.

Australian Journal of Psychology Vol. 55, No. I, 2003 pp. 35-42

36 Rebecca Mathews, Cheryl Dissanayake and Chris Pratt

stage but are able to draw on the initial representation of theobject to form their conclusion. Whilst Piaget argued thatchildren are unable to conserve until around 7 years of age,recent findings indicate that children can succeed at conserva-tion at an age which is more in line with the developmentof other cognitive abilities such as the appearance-realitydistinction, theory of mind, and perspective-taking (Wellman& Bartsch, 1989; Siegal, 1991). This is not surprising giventhat all of these abilities depend on the capacity to appreciatetwo contradictory yet simultaneous realities. If it is this capac-ity which forms the basis for the emergence of each of theseabilities, then it may be expected that the development of theseabilities will be related.

There has long been interest in a possible associationbetween some of these cognitive abilities. More than 30 yearsago Braine and Shanks (1965a, 1965b) suggested that conser-vation requires an understanding of the appearance-realitydistinction. In keeping with this speculation, Murray (1968)reported a strong and clear relationship between appearance-reality and conservation in children aged between 5 and 7years. Similarly, Russell and Mitchell (1985) reported a signif-icant association between appearance-reality and conservationabilities in children aged 4 to 6 years.

The ability to conserve has also been found to be relatedto social perspective-taking, (i.e., inferring a person's perspec-tive with regard to particular social events) in 5- to 8-year-oldchildren (Oppenheimer & Van Der Lee, 1983). Furthermore,high correlations have been found between appearance-realityand perspective-taking abilities in 3- to 5-year-old children,suggesting that these abilities share knowledge and skillcomponents (Flavell et al., 1986; Gopnik & Astington, 1988;Moore et al., 1990). Performance on appearance-reality testshas also been found to be associated with theory of mind abili-ties (Moore et al., 1990). This association is upheld even whenage is partialled out (Gopnik & Astington, 1988).

While there is evidence that conservation and appearance-reality abilities are related, and, that appearance-reality abilitiesare associated with theory of mind capacity, to date there hasbeen no direct test for an association between conservation andtheory of mind abilities in young children. Our primary aim wasto address this gap in the literature.

Some information on this association has been providedin two studies. Slaughter and Gopnik (1996) looked for anassociation between number conservation and theory of mindin children aged between 3 years, I month and 4 years,5 months in a study where they attempted to improvechildren's false belief performance through training. Childrenwere trained either on belief tasks, perception and desire tasks,or number conservation tasks. Slaughter and Gopnik foundno link between conservation and theory of mind abilities.However, although the group that was trained on the numbertask showed superior performance on conservation whencompared to the other two groups, in this study children'sperformance on the number conservation task was generallypoor. Hence, it may be that children in this study were notat an age where conservation abilities provided a developmen-tal effect sufficient to detect an association.

A study by Yirmiya and Shulman (1996) indirectly providedinformation regarding a possible association between theoryof mind and conservation ability. In a study comparing conser-vation, seriation (the ordering of objects according to someprinciple), and theory of mind abilities in individuals withautism, mental retardation, and normally developing children,they found that children with autism, who generally performpoorly on tasks assessing theory of mind, also performedpoorly on conservation. This suggests that there may bean association between these abilities. When a formal analysis

was conducted to test for the association, Yirmiya andShulman, like Slaughter and Gopnik (1996), found no signifi-cant correlations in any of the groups. However, the normallydeveloping children in their study were aged between 5 years,10 months and 11 years, 7 months. If an association betweenconservation and theory of mind is dependent on an abilitywhich emerges in early childhood, then it would be expectedthat many of the children in the age range tested by Yirmiyaand Shulman would have already developed these skills.Therefore, given possible ceiling effects for the normallydeveloping children, no association would be expected.

While the two studies reviewed suggest no associationbetween conservation and theory of mind development, it ispossible that these studies have not found a relationshipbecause of floor or ceiling effects. Murray (1968) and Russelland Mitchell (1985) who reported an association betweenappearance-reality and conservation investigated these abili-ties in children aged between 4 and 7 years of age. It may bethat investigating theory of mind and conservation develop-ment in children across a broader age range where develop-ment of both of these abilities would be expected to occur mayyield further information on a possible association.

An important debate when evaluating the developmentof theory of mind or conservation abilities in young childrencentres on the type of task applied. It has been proposed thatfalse belief reasoning is a particularly difficult way to deter-mine theory of mind abilities (Bloom & German, 2000;Wellman & Bartsch, 1989). Standard false belief tasks havebeen criticised due to their high linguistic loading (Freeman,1994; Lewis & Osborne, 1990; Shatz, 1994; Siegal, 1991), andlack of ecological validity (Chandler, Fritz & Hala, 1989;Chandler & Hala, 1994; Dalke, 1995; Dunn, 1994).The use of modified versions of the standard tasks to addresssome of these problems indicates that children younger than4 years do in fact have theory of mind abilities.

Chandler and Hala (1994) presented 3-year-old childrenwith a modified version of the unexpected transfer and theunexpected contents tasks in which the children were encour-aged to participate in a conspiracy with the experimenter.The participants were involved in both the planning and theactions of the task such that they were assigned the taskof deceiving a second experimenter, resulting in the experi-menter possessing a false belief. The results of this studyindicate that as many as 87% of 3-year-olds passed false belieftasks under this condition compared to a 40% pass rate on thestandard false belief task. The authors argued that involvingchildren in the planning aspect of the task (being mentallyinvolved) is particularly important to their theory of mindunderstanding because it alerts them to relevant features of thetask (Chandler & Hala, 1994; Hala & Chandler, 1996).Ruffman, Olson, Ash, and Keenan (1993) used a standard andan interactive paradigm to investigate children's understandingof deception and found no differences in overall performancebetween active and non-active tasks. However, children'sinvolvement in this study was minimal in comparison to theirinvolvement in the study conducted by Chandler and Hala(1994). It is possible that the difference in the degreeof involvement by children may explain the contradictoryfindings. However, others argue that modified tasks may notreflect true false belief abilities; but rather tap into somethingrelated (Galpert & Dockrell, 1995; Ruffman et al., 1993).Nevertheless, research using a variety of modified taskspresent persuasive findings, which indicate that the youngchild's cognitive capacity exceeds that which has been previ-ously ascribed to them.

Wellman, Cross and Watson (2001) recently conducteda meta-analysis to address some of the inconsistent findings

Australian Journal of Psychology - April 2003

The Relationship Between Theory of Mind and Conservation Abilities in Children Using an Active/Inactive Paradigm 37regarding theory of mind development. They included 77different articles encompassing 178 separate studies whichwere used to investigate various factors including task manipu-lation. It was concluded that false belief performance showsa consistent developmental pattern that is marked bya conceptual change in the pre-school years and whichis largely unaffected by the medium in which the taskis presented. However, active participation by children intransferring the object was an important factor and contributedsignificantly to children's performance at all ages tested.

As with false belief tasks, standard conservation tasks havelong been identified as being problematic. The ecologicalvalidity of standard conservation tasks has been identifiedas a factor in young children's poor performance (Donaldson,1978; Gelman, 1978), and linguistic difficulties are saidto contribute to the failure of children younger than 7 years(Hargreaves, Molloy & Pratt, 1982; Rose & Blank, 1974).In a well-known study, McGarrigle and Donaldson (1974)attempted to improve the ecological validity of the numberconservation task by having a puppet accidentally make thetransformation. They assessed 80 children aged between 4 and6 years and found that 63% of these children conserved underthis condition compared to only 16% of children conservingin the standard version of this task. These findings appearto contradict the traditional view put forward by Piaget (1952),that children younger than around 7 years are unable to succ-eed at conservation.

Halford (1982; Halford et al., 1995), while retaining Piaget'snotion of stages in development has postulated an information-processing model of cognitive development determined by thecapacity for processing chunks of information. He proposesthat conservation ability emerges between 4'/2 and 5 years-of-age, rather than at around 7 years. However, he argues thatchildren younger than 41/2 years-of-age do not have the infor-mation processing capacity required for conservation.Although McGarrigle and Donaldson included a sampleof children aged between 4 and 6 years, they do not provideinformation on the number of children aged below 41/2 yearswho conserved. This is also the case in studies replicating theMcGarrigle and Donaldson findings (Light, Buckingham& Robbins, 1979; Dockrell, Campbell & Nelson, 1980;Neilson Dockrell & McKechnie, 1983).

McGarrigle and Donaldson (1974) involved childrenin a game with the experimenter and Naughty Teddy, makingthe task more interesting and increasing its ecological validity.However, the children were not actively involved in the trans-formation of the material. Following the argument put forwardby Chandler and Hala (1994), actively involving childrenin conservation tasks may result in children even younger than4 years passing these tasks, thereby disputing Halford's (1982;Halford et al., 1995) claim. Therefore, a second interest in thisstudy was to evaluate the effect of actively involving childrenin conservation tasks as well as in false belief tasks.

In summary, the main aim in this research was to investigatethe relationship between theory of mind and conservationability. It was hypothesised that there would be an associationbetween performance on the two tasks that is independentof age or verbal ability. An important consideration whenaddressing this aim was to maximise young children's capacityto succeed at these tasks. In order to do this, both standard andmodified false belief and conservation tasks were administeredto take account of the possible influence of task type whenaddressing the research question. A secondary aim in thisstudy was to address the proposal that actively involvingchildren in tasks will lead to improved performance. In order toaddress this aim, children were divided into two age groups(younger/older) to evaluate the age at which these tasks

develop. Based on the existing empirical research, and theconclusions drawn by Wellman et al. (2000) in their meta-analysis, it was predicted that both groups of children wouldshow higher performance on the modified tasks whencompared to the standard tasks and that this difference wouldhold when age and verbal ability are taken into account.Furthermore, it was expected that this task difference would belarger for the younger group when compared to the older group.

METHODParticipants

Eighty-eight children were recruited from four preschoolcentres and one primary school. Of these 88 children, 5 wereexcluded because they were absent during Session 2 of thetesting period, and 5 children failed at least one of the controlquestions on the false belief tasks. This left 78 participants(40 females and 38 males) aged between 3 years, 3 monthsand 6 years, 11 months (mean age = 4 years, 8 months).The children were divided into two age groups. The youngergroup included 38 children aged between 3 years, 3 monthsand 4 years, 6 months (mean age = 3 years, 10 months),and the older group comprised 40 children aged between4 years, 7 months and 6 years, 11 months (mean age = 5 years,3 months). The younger group included 16 girls and 19 boysand the older group was made up of 24 girls and 19 boys.All participants were fluent in English and fell in the averageto above average range on vocabulary knowledgeas demonstrated by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test- Revised (PPVT-R; Dunn & Dunn, 1981). They werepredominantly of low- to middle-class social economic status.

MeasuresAll children were administered two standard and two modifiedfalse belief tasks and three standard and three modified conser-vation tasks.

False Belief TasksStandard tasks. The unexpected transfer (UT) task was avariation of Wimmer and Perner's (1983) Maxi task. Twopuppets (Pooh-Bear and Piglet) enacted a similar story to thatpresented by Wimmer and Perner in which Pooh-Bear holds afalse belief about where his honey is located because it wasmoved by Piglet while he was asleep. Following this scenariothe child was asked two control questions, "Where is thehoney-pot really?" (Reality Question); "Where did Pooh-Bearput the honey?" (Memory Question). The procedure for allfalse belief tasks, both standard and modified, was identical inthat if the child answered any of the control questions incor-rectly, the scenario was played out again and the child wasagain asked the control questions. If one or both controlquestions were failed a second time the child was excludedfrom the remainder of the study. If the child answeredcorrectly the experimenter proceeded with the story. In thiscase, Pooh-Bear then wakes up and is feeling hungry.The child was then asked the false belief question: "Wherewill Pooh-Bear first look for the honey?"

Hogrefe et al.'s (1986) unexpected contents (UC) task wasalso applied in which the child was shown a Smarties box andasked, "What is in here?" Having replied that the box containsSmarties (or some equivalent), the child was offered the boxto open and discovered that it actually contains pencils. Oncethe box was resealed, the child was asked the control question,"Can you remember what is inside here?" (Memory Question)The child was then asked the attribution-to-self false beliefquestion: "When I first showed you the box what did you thinkwas inside before we opened it?" The child was then asked theattribution-to-other false belief question: "Experimenter 2 (E2)

Australian Journal of Psychology - April 2003I


hasn't seen inside this box. If I ask her, what will she thinkis in the box before I open it?"

Modified tasks. The modified UT and UC tasks were anadaptation of the tasks designed by Chandler and Hala (1994)in which the child was encouraged to actively participate withan experimenter (E2) in playing a trick on another experi-menter (El). A bowl with a lid, a box with a lid. and a teapotwith a lid were placed on the table. El placed a chocolate barinto the plastic bowl and put the lid on saying, "I'll leave thishere until I come back". Once she had left the room, E2 said tothe child, "I know, let's play a trick on El. Let's hide herchocolate bar. Shall we put it in the teapot or the box?" Whenthe child had chosen the new location, the experimenterencouraged the child to hide the chocolate bar. If the childanswered the control questions correctly the experimenterproceeded to administer the false belief question, "When Elcomes back where will she first look for the chocolate?"

In the UC task, El excused herself from the room. Beforeleaving she placed a "Milk Tray" confectionery box on thetable. The child was then asked by E2, "What do you thinkis in this box?" Following the child's reply of chocolates(or some equivalent), E2 asked the child to "look inside andsee". The child found that the box contained a set of keys.Having closed the box the experimenter asked the child thecontrol question: "Can you remember what is in here?"(Memory Question) The attribution-to-self false beliefquestion was then asked, "When I first showed you the box,what did you think was inside before you opened it?" E2 thensuggested to the child that they play a trick on El saying,"Let's hide El's keys and put something funny in her box.Why don't you choose one of my funny toys (three joke items)to put into El's box'.' Once the child had hidden the keys out ofsight, and placed one of the joke items into the Milk Tray box.the control questions were asked: "What is in the box now?"(Reality Question), and "Did El see us take the keys out of thebox?" (Memory Question) If the child answered correctly, theattribution-to-other false belief question was administered:"When El comes back, what will she think is in the box beforeshe opens it?"

Conservation TasksStandard tasks. The standard conservation tasks for liquid,mass, and number, as described by Daehler and Bukatko(1985), were administered. The child was shown two equiva-lent glasses of water/balls of playdough/rows of counters,and asked, "Do these have the same amount of water/playdough, or number of counters?" The experimenter directedthe child to "watch carefully what I do" while transforming theappearance of the liquid (by pouring it into a wider glass),playdough (by rolling it into a sausage shape), and the counters(by spreading one row out to make it appear longer). The childwas again asked, "Is there the same amount of water/playdough/number of counters in each row, or a different amount?"

Modified tasks. Each of the modified liquid, mass and numbertasks was presented in an interactive game setting, in order toactively engage the participants. The experimenter introducedthe child to two dolls (Kate and Lucy), and said, "Why don'twe play a game. Let's make Kate and Lucy some snacks". Forthe Liquid task, the experimenter pointed to four clear glassescontaining milk (diluted white paint), of which only twoclearly contained the same amount, and asked the childto "bring over two cups with the same amount of milk in themso that Kate and Lucy have the same amount to drink." Whenthe child returned with the two cups of milk the experimenteradded, "Kate likes this cup but Lucy has her own special cup.She only likes to drink out of this cup". The experimenter

offered the child a wider shaped beaker and said. "Why don'tyou pour Lucy's milk into her favourite cup and then giveKate and Lucy their drinks?" When this was done the experi-menter asked the conservation question: "Now that Kate andLucy both have the cup they like, do they have the sameamount of milk to drink or a different amount?"

In the Mass task, the experimenter then directed the childto a tray of biscuits (made of playdough) and asked the childto "Choose a biscuit for Kate and a biscuit for Lucy but makesure that they both have the same amount of biscuit to eat".(Only two biscuits available for selection by the child wereof equal size.) When the child returned with the biscuits theexperimenter said, "When we leave the table someone mightmove the biscuits and I won't know which biscuit you gaveto Kate and which one you gave to Lucy. Why don't you makeKate's biscuit look different by rolling it flat so that I willknow which biscuit is hers". Once this was done the experi-menter added, "Now we know that this biscuit is Kate's(points to flat biscuit) and that this biscuit is Lucy's (pointsto the biscuit in original shape). Do they have the same amountof biscuit to eat or a different amount?"

In the third interactive task. the Number task the experi-menter asked the child to "choose two plates which have thesame number of Smarties so that Kate and Lucy have the sameamount to eat". (Only two plates with the same numberof smarties (6) were available to the child.) When the childreturned, the experimenter asked the child to "lay the Smartiesout in a row because Kate and Lucy eat one Smartie at a time".The experimenter pulled out two place-mats with six dotsdifferentially laid out to create a short and a long line. Shedirected the child to lay the smarties on the place-mats. Oncethe child had arranged all the smarties in their appropriateplace the experimenter asked. "Do Kate and Lucy have thesame number of smarties to eat or a different number?"

Procedure

Each child was tested individually in their preschoolsor schools and were administered all tasks over two sessionsseparated by a minimum of 5 days. The child and the experi-menter were seated opposite one another at a table. The firstsession included a modified and a standard false belief taskseparated by either the set of modified or the set of standardconservation tasks. In the second session the remaining falsebelief tasks were presented separated by the other set of con-servation tasks. In each session the order of presentation of thestandard and modified false belief tasks was counterbalancedand the order of the two sessions was also counterbalancedacross children. Presentation order of the three conservationtasks was counterbalanced for both the modified and thestandard versions, and the order of the words "same" and"different" within the tasks was also counterbalanced.

RESULTS

In order to determine whether children in both age groups areshowing an acceptable level of performance on false belief andconservation tasks, results for the second hypothesis areconsidered first. A score of I was given for a correct answerfor each of the three questions in each of the standard andmodified false belief and conservation tasks. Means andstandard deviations for younger and older groups for perfor-mance on the PPVT-R and the modified and standard tasks arepresented in Table I.

Performance on PPVT-R and Standardand Modified Tasks

As expected participants in the older group demonstratedhigher verbal ability when compared to participants in the


The Relationship Between Theory of Mind and Conservation Abilities in Children Using an Active/Inactive Paradigm 39Table IMeans and Standard Deviations for the Younger and the Older Groupon PPVT-R, Standard and Modified False Belief and ConservationTasks (Max Score of 3 for Each Set of the Standard and ModifiedConservation and False Belief Tasks)Younger Group PPVT-R (verbal age)

M Range49 34-62SFB MFB SCons MCons

M SD M SD M SD M SD1.60 .91 1.62 1.06 .60 .73 .88 .75

Older Group PPVT-R (verbal age)

M Range74 51-136SFB MFB SCons MCons

M SD M SD M SD M SD2.72 .59 2.74 .62 1.18 1.20 1.60 1.11

Note: SFB = Standard False Belief, MFB = Modified False Belief,SCons = Standard Conservation, MCons = Modified Conservation.

younger group. A t test demonstrated that this difference wassignificant: t(76) = -6.1, p = .000.

In evaluating false belief performance a 2 (Group: younger/older) x 2 (Task: modified/standard) analysis of variance(ANOVA) with repeated measures on the second factorrevealed that the main effect for Group was significantF(1, 76) = 46.76, p < .001. Older children performed betteron the false belief tasks than the younger participants.The main effect for Task was not significant F(1, 76) = .10,p = .75, and there was no interaction effect F(1, 76) < .01, p = .97.

For conservation performance a 2 x 2 ANOVA withrepeated measures on the second factor revealed a significantmain effect for Group F(1, 76) = 10.08, p < .05. As expected,older children again performed significantly better than theiryounger counterparts. A significant main effect for Taskwas also revealed, F(1, 76) = 13.57, p < .001. As indicatedby the means, the modified condition resulted in higherconservation performance compared to the standard condition.No interaction was found between Group and Task F(1, 76)= .48, p = .489.

The Relationship Between the Developmentof Theory of Mind and Conservation Abilities

Given that no differences were found between children'sperformance on the standard and modified false belief tasks,these scores were collapsed in the following correlationalanalyses. For the conservation task, although a difference wasobserved between the standard and modified tasks, it did notinteract with age. Hence, we report correlational analyses forthe aggregate conservation score, as well as the standard andmodified tasks separately. However, it was also decidedto investigate the differences that were found to ensure anyimportant information is gained. Therefore, the standardand modified scores were collapsed to give each participanta composite score between 0 and 6 for false belief perfor-mance, and a score between 0 and 6 for conservation.However, we also allocated scores between 0 and 3 formodified and standard conservation tasks only.

Correlations were performed using Pearson correlationcoefficients, which were also examined with age and verbalability partialled out. In order to maximise group variabilitythe relationship between conservation and theory of mind wasexamined for the whole group as well as for younger and oldergroups separately. This investigation revealed a significantcorrelation between theory of mind and conservation abilitiesfor the total group (r = .32, p = .004). However, the association

was lost when age (r = .01, p = .920) or verbal ability (r = .02,p = .886) was partialled out. Similarly a significant correlationwas found between conservation and theory of mind for theolder group (r = .34, p < .027), which again was lost when age(r = .27, p = .102) or verbal ability (r = .186, p = .256) waspartialled out. No correlation was found for the younger group(r = -.04, p = .8).

The correlations between theory of mind and the standardand modified conservation tasks were explored separately forthe whole group as well as for the younger and older groups.The results for the whole group showed that there were signifi-cant correlations between theory of mind and both modified(r = .25, p = .030) and standard conservation tasks (r = .35,p = .002). However, as in the previous analyses when age(r = -.09, p = .428/r = .10, p = .358 respectively) and verbalability (r = -.03, p = .797/r = .06, p = .602 respectively)are taken into account the correlations were no longer signifi-cant and were very low. When looking at the older group, thecorrelation between performance on theory of mind andstandard conservation was just significant (r = .32, p = .047)but not for the modified conservation (r = .26, p = .10) perfor-mance. Again, when age (r = .271, p = .09) and verbal ability(r = .188, p = .251) are considered, the correlation is muchlower and does not reach significance. As in the previousanalysis no significant correlations were found between theoryof mind and standard (r = .19, p = .269) or modified conserva-tion tasks (r = -. 15, p = .367) for the younger group.

DISCUSSIONThe primary aim in this study was to investigate the relation-ship between the development of theory of mind and conserva-tion abilities. It was expected that an association wouldbe found between theory of mind and conservation abilitiesindependent of age or verbal ability. This hypothesis was notsupported. Thus, while not definitive, the findings of this studyaccord with the conclusions of Slaughter and Gopnik (1996)and Yirmiya and Shulman (1996), that no direct relationshipexists between conservation and theory of mind abilities.Any contribution that theory of mind abilities makes to thedevelopment of conservation is likely to be mediated by thedevelopment of other abilities central to conservation, and notnecessarily due to any mechanism unique to theory of mindreasoning. Halford (1982; Halford et al., 1995) asserted thatwhile the ability to consider information in two dimensionsfacilitates conservation, it is not actually responsible for thedevelopment of conservation. The findings of the present studyconfirm this view. While it is unclear whether the developmentof conservation is advanced by prior theory of mind knowl-edge, it is apparent that conservation is a higher level skill thatrequires a more sophisticated form of knowledge than thatwhich is needed to master false belief tasks.

One basis for proposing a relationship between these skillswas the fact that a relationship between appearance-realityskills (which mirror theory of mind abilities but at a physicallevel) and conservation has been confirmed (Murray, 1968;Russell & Mitchell, 1985). An explanation for the relationshiphere may be that conservation and appearance-reality skillshave in common the requirement that the child considerperceptual information about physical objects rather thancontemplate information at a mental level. Piaget (1952)argued that children find conservation particularly difficultbecause they must learn to overcome the perceptual appear-ance of an object in order to accept the underlying reality.Therefore, the ability to distinguish physical appearance fromreality is a useful skill that, understandably, would facilitatethe ability to conserve. In contrast, understanding others'mental states does not offer any information about the physical



transformation of objects. Thus, theory of mind abilities andthe appearance-reality distinction, while possessing somecommon features relating to the area under investigation, arelikely to make quite distinct contributions to the developmentof the child's conservation ability.

A second explanation for the relationship between appear-ance-reality and conservation skills may be that the relation-ship derives from the different linguistic framework thatthe appearance-reality task brings to the conservation task.That is, framing the conservation question as anappearance-reality question facilitates children's understand-ing of what is actually being asked of them (e.g., "Are theyreally different or is there still the same amount?" as opposedto the standard conservation question, "Is there the sameamount or a different amount?") Research has shown thatconservation questions can be problematic for young childrenand that when the question is altered these children performbetter (Hargreaves et al., 1982). Therefore, this may be thebasis for the connection between these two tasks.

The second aim in the current study was to evaluate theeffect that actively involving children in the task will haveon task performance. Chandler and Hala (1994) found that3-year-old children passed false belief tasks under thismodified condition, but that these same children often failedthe standard versions of these tasks. Whilst this study wasnot a replication of Chandler and Hala's study, we were inter-ested in further evaluating their claims. As expected, olderchildren performed significantly better than the youngerchildren on both the standard and the modified false belieftasks. However, while the means for the younger groupsuggested that younger children performed better on themodified tasks compared to the standard tasks, this differencewas not significant. This result is in accordance with thoseof Ruffman et al. (1993) who, using an inactive and activeparadigm, found no differences in performance.

In this study the unexpected transfer task was identical to theprocedure used by Chandler and Hala (1994) apart from theintroduction of the teapot. Given that planning has been foundto be an important element in helping the child solve the falsebelief problem (Chandler & Hala, 1994; Hala & Chandler.1996), it was considered important that the child be ableto plan the re-location of the object. It was also consideredimportant that the task should not vary greatly from thestandard task in order to control for any other variables thatmay affect performance. Therefore the format of the modifiedtask was kept as close as possible to that of the standard taskwhile allowing the child to be actively involved. Chandler andHala did not provide sufficient information regarding theirmethod to allow an assessment of the possible hiding spotsoffered to the child. It is unclear, then, whether adding theteapot resulted in an increased number of variables for thechild to consider. Chandler and Hala may have allowed thechild to choose the location of their choice rather than limitingthem to set hiding spots. If so, increasing the child's optionsmay have allowed more personal involvement in the task.generating superior results. In the current study, childrentended to choose the closest container in order to hide theobject as quickly as possible.

The unexpected contents task was altered to a greater degreethan the unexpected transfer task. Chandler and Hala (1994)used the unexpected contents task to assess the "attributionto other" question. In the present study it was also used toassess the "attribution to self' question, again bringing theprocedure more in line with the standard version of this task.This additional question led to the task being long which mayhave impacted on children's performance. However. children's

responses on the control questions indicated that they wereable to follow and understand the task requirements.

Chandler and Hala (1994) and Hala and Chandler (1996)have proposed that the important mechanism that facilitatedfalse belief performance in young children was the planningaspect of the task. Children in this study were encouragedto be as fully involved as possible in both physically carryingout procedures and mentally planning and making decisionsregarding the task. Yet children did not show superior perfor-mance in the modified condition when compared to thestandard task. Modifying the false belief tasks in orderto optimise performance did not facilitate theory of mind abili-ties in the young group of children included here. In contrast,the older children, who were above the age level at whichtheory of mind is generally thought to emerge, performedsignificantly better on both versions of these tasks.The findings presented here are contrary to the results of theChandler and Hala studies and the review outcomeby Wellman et al. (2001). The study results indicate supportfor the watershed hypothesis of theory of mind acquisition.

This study also extended the work of Chandler and Hala(1994) and Ruffman et al. (1993) by investigating whetheractively involving children in the task will advance youngchildren's performance on conservation. As expected, olderchildren were more competent conservers than were theyounger children. Moreover, both groups of children per-formed significantly better on modified conservation taskswhen compared to the standard versions of these tasks.The modified conservation tasks were presented in a scenariothat is likely to have been particularly familiar and comfortablefor children. The focus of the game was not on the individualtransformations. but the transformations were placedin a broader social context in which the child could take partand play alongside the experimenter. This eliminated the "test"situation from the conservation task. It was apparent during thesession that children enjoyed, and preferred, the modifiedversions of the conservation tasks. Hence, it was not surprisingthat they performed better. McGarrigle and Donaldson (1974)argued that changes in context, which made it more legitimateto ask about the quantities following the transformation, mayinfluence performance. The modified conservation conditionin this study applied this principle and illustrates support forthis argument.

The material used in the modified tasks was altered slightlyto allow conservation tasks to be played out in a party setting.However, these changes were minimal, and, as with the falsebelief tasks, an attempt was made to keep the modified tasksas close as possible to the form in the standard tasks. The mainelements of the task which were altered, and which mayexplain the improved performance in the modified conditions,were the changed context and the active involvement of thechild. It is not possible to determine to what proportion eachof these changes contributed to children's increased conserva-tion understanding. This is a task for future research. However,as stated previously, it has been argued that it is the planningcomponent that is most important when involving childrenin tasks (Chandler & Hala. 1994; Hala & Chandler, 1996).In the modified conservation tasks the children were notinvolved in planning, but were instructed to serve food andpour drinks for the dolls. If planning is the crucial componentof the task that increases children's understanding, then it waslacking in these tasks. Thus, in this study, changing the context(as demonstrated by McGarrigle and Donaldson, 1974) mayhave had a substantial impact on children's understandingof conservation.

However, regardless of children's improved performancein the modified condition, in contrast to the older group, young


The Relationship Between Theory of Mind and Conservation Abilities in Children Using an Active/Inactive Paradigm

children in this study performed poorly on both the modifiedand the standard conservation tasks. This finding is in linewith the argument put forward by developmental theoristssuch as Piaget and Halford who argue that conservation is askill that is acquired at a particular developmental level ofmaturity (Halford, 1982; Halford et al., 1995; Piaget, 1952).Nevertheless, the findings indicate that actively involvingchildren in the tasks may facilitate conservation performanceand allow younger children to gain some understanding of theconservation question.

In conclusion, a corpus of research over several decades hasendeavoured to understand the processes involved in theattainment of major changes in children's thinking. Of thesecognitive abilities emerging in early childhood, conservationhas been, and remains, an enigma. As yet, little is knownof the processes and skills that contribute to children's under-standing of conservation. A major challenge in this studywas to investigate the relationship between the developmentof theory of mind and conservation abilities. The findingssuggest that no direct relationship exists between the develop-ment of these abilities. Rather, these abilities emerge at differ-ent periods in children's early development and are likely to bedependent on different cognitive capacities which reflectprocesses of maturation.

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