There has long been a hypothesized link between pretend play and self‐regulation in childhood, and several recent studies have confirmed a positive relation between the two in children as young as preschool‐age. However, no research to date has investigated whether this relation is present in toddlerhood. The purpose of the present study is to explore whether toddlers' pretence is correlated with emerging executive function skills. Age‐appropriate measures of comprehension of pretence, working memory, and inhibitory control were administered to 86 toddlers. The results show that, after controlling for age, comprehension of pretence was positively correlated to delay of gratification, but not working memory or conflict inhibitory control. These data are the first to demonstrate a positive correlation between pretence and delay inhibitory control in children younger than 3 years old. Implications of these findings for the possible role of inhibitory control in the development of the ability to represent pretend actions are discussed.

中文翻译：

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幼儿的假装与紧急执行功能之间的关系

长期以来，假想游戏与自我调节之间存在假想的联系，最近的一些研究证实了两者之间在学龄前儿童中呈正相关。但是，迄今为止，尚无研究调查这种关系是否存在于幼儿期。本研究的目的是探讨幼儿的假装与新兴的执行功能技能是否相关。对86名幼儿进行了与年龄相适应的假装，工作记忆和抑制性控制措施。结果表明，在控制了年龄之后，假装的理解与满足的延迟呈正相关，而与工作记忆或冲突抑制的控制则没有正相关。这些数据是第一个证明3岁以下儿童的假装与延迟抑制控制之间呈正相关的数据。讨论了这些发现对抑制控制在代表假装行为能力发展中可能发挥作用的意义。