The development of a mind‐reading ability, known as theory‐of‐mind (ToM), has been recognized as following a universal process, but the age at which the false‐belief task is passed has been reported to have wide inter‐group variabilities. Japanese children have been reported to acquire a false‐belief understanding at a slightly older age than their western counterparts. The present study investigated the extent to which Japanese‐children's understanding of ToM could be brought forward by using perspective‐shifting training in conversational discourses. Japanese children aged 4.5 years‐old, but not 4.0 years‐old, improved their false‐belief understanding after the training. However, this improvement was limited to their understanding of representation‐change. Although it is hard to isolate the influence of language experiences and socio‐culture aspects, training with perspective‐shifting discourses in interactive contexts was effective in enhancing the development of mind‐reading for 4.5 year old Japanese children.

中文翻译：

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视角转换话语训练可提高日本年幼儿童对心理理论的理解

认知能力的发展，被称为心智理论（ToM），已被认为遵循普遍过程，但据报道，通过虚假信念任务的年龄段具有广泛的群体间变异性。据报道，日本儿童比西方儿童年龄稍大，他们会获得错误的信仰理解。本研究调查了在对话语境中使用视角转换训练可以提高日本儿童对ToM的理解的程度。在训练后，年龄为4.5岁而非4.0岁的日本儿童提高了对错误信念的理解。但是，这种改进仅限于他们对表示更改的理解。