Abstract
The study grounds on the hypothesis that schooling plays a central role in the acquisition of mental verbs. Sixty Canadian and 60 Italian students (Primary School Grades 3 and 5 and Junior High School Grade 8) were administered a series of trials based on a task devised by Astington and Olson (1990) with the goal to assess the understanding of 12 metarepresentational verbs. For each verb 3 stories were created concerning 3 domains: Folk Psychology, History, and Mathematics. Students were asked to substitute for the general verbs “to think” or “to say” a suitable more specific verb by selecting it among 4 different alternatives. The main results were: (a) in each domain metarepresentational competence increased across school levels with significant differences only between Primary School Grade 3 students and the older ones; (b) Italian students improved in performance in a larger extent than Canadian ones; (c) the increase in performance was higher in Folk Psychology and History than in Mathematics; (d) mental verbs were differently understood depending on country, school level, and domain.
The Development of Metarepresentational Concepts in Folk Psychology, History, and Mathematics
Research on children's understanding of mental verbs has grown in importance during the last fifteen years, dealing mainly with the following topics: the chronology of acquisition of such terms (Bretherton & Beeghly, 1982; Shatz, Wellman & Silber, 1983; Shatz, 1994; Astington & Olson, 1990; Wellman & Bartsch, 1994; Bartsch & Wellman, 1995); the psychological use of mental lexicon (Breterthon & Beeghly, 1982; Shatz et al., 1983; Olson & Torrance, 1987; Shatz, 1994; Siegal & Peterson, 1995; Olson, 1997); the referents of mental lexicon (Bretherton & Beeghly, 1982; Shatz et al., 1983). Researches look at the verbal expression of mental states in ways that reflect different points of view about the relationship between thought and language. We can distinguish two main perspectives (Butterworth, Harris, Leslie & Wellman, 1991; Astington, 1996, 1998; Liverta-Sempio & Marchetti, 1997). The first perspective derives from Piaget's general assumption that socio-cultural factors have limited influence on cognitive development. From this point of view the use of mental terms expresses the acquisition of a theory of mind (Wellman & Bartsch, 1994; Bartsch & Wellman, 1995; Gopnik & Meltzoff, 1997). The second perspective, originating from the work of Vygotsky, focuses on cultural factors involved in the understanding of one's own and others' mind. In particular it assigns a co-constructive role to the various interactive contexts where cognitive development--including the understanding of the mind--is situated. For instance Dunn (1988, 1994; Dunn, Bretherton & Munn, 1987; Dunn et al., 1991) observes that children understand the mind through the intensive interaction first with their caregivers and then with their siblings; some studies deal with family size (Perner, Ruffman & Leekam, 1994; Jenkins & Astington, 1996; Ruffman et al., 1998) showing its effect on the acquisition of the theory of the mind concepts. The importance of pretend play among siblings for the development of an understanding of mental states is highlighted by Perner, Ruffman & Leekam (1994) and by Hove, Petrakos & Rinaldi (1998).
