Theory‐of‐mind (ToM) is an integral part of social cognition, but how it develops remains a critical question. There is evidence that children can gain insight into ToM through experience, including language training and explanatory interactions. But this still leaves open the question of how children gain these insights—what processes drive this learning? We propose that analogical comparison is a key mechanism in the development of ToM. In Experiment 1, children were shown true‐ and false‐belief scenarios and prompted to engage in multiple comparisons (e.g., belief vs. world). In Experiments 2a, 2b, and 3, children saw a series of true‐ and false‐belief events, varying in order and in their alignability. Across these experiments, we found that providing support for comparing true‐ and false‐belief scenarios led to increased performance on false‐belief tests. These findings show that analogical comparison can support ToM learning.

中文翻译：

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类比比较促进心理理论的发展。

心理理论（ToM）是社会认知的一个组成部分，但它如何发展仍然是一个关键问题。有证据表明，儿童可以通过经验（包括语言训练和解释性互动）深入了解 ToM。但这仍然留下了一个问题，即如何孩子们获得了这些见解——是什么过程推动了这种学习？我们认为类比比较是 ToM 发展的关键机制。在实验 1 中，孩子们被展示了真实和错误的信念场景，并被提示进行多重比较（例如，信念与世界）。在实验 2a、2b 和 3 中，孩子们看到了一系列真实和错误的信念事件，顺序和一致性各不相同。在这些实验中，我们发现为比较真假信念情景提供支持可以提高假信念测试的性能。这些发现表明类比比较可以支持 ToM 学习。