摘要
在过去的二十多年中，儿童早期心理理论的发展逐渐成为发展心理学的重要课题。涉及心理理论的研究领域也日渐广泛。近年来西方学者普遍关注的研究热点是幼儿的假装技能、语言发展等在心理理论发展中的作用。
对儿童假装行为的考察多是通过自发的假装游戏情境；与心理理论发展相关的语义功能主要涉及心理状态术语的应用，而假装游戏又是诱发儿童使用心理状态术语的主要情境之一。一般言语能力与幼儿ToM发展也有密切关系。本研究的目的就在于探讨幼儿的一般言语能力和假装游戏及其中心理状态术语的应用，与错误信念的理解是否存在一定的相关并具有一定的发展特征。
共有57名3-5岁的学前幼儿完成了所有的实验任务，分别来自两所公立幼儿园。研究程序包括假装游戏的拍摄、麦卡锡幼儿言语智力测验和两类标准错误信念任务。对假装游戏的编码依据以下八种分类：物体替代、想象游戏、物体的拟人化、角色指派、角色延伸、角色扮演、联合提议、对假装的讨论；其中心理状态术语的应用主要有五个范畴：真正指向心理状态、习惯用语、对话功能、表达行为意愿和其它用法。研究结果发现：
(1)3-5岁儿童错误信念的理解和一般言语能力均存在显著的年龄主效应。
(2)在控制了年龄因素之后，3-5岁儿童的一般言语能力与错误信念的理解仍然存在显著相关。
(3)3-5岁儿童心理状态术语的使用存在情境差异，且随年龄的增长具有“指向愿望—指向信念”的维度特征。
(4)在控制相关因素之后，3-5岁儿童错误信念的理解与假装游戏的某些特定类别仍然存在显著相关，例如“物体替代”、“拟人化”和“角色指派”。
(5)在控制相关因素之后，3-5岁儿童错误信念的理解与假装游戏中心理状态术语的应用及其特定范畴(习惯用语)之间仍然存在显著相关；与“真正涉及心理状态”之应用的相关不再显著。
Young children's Theory of Mind (ToM) has become a hot issue in cognitive development since last two decades. The research themes related to ToM involve a wide range. Recently, many studies have been focusing on conceptualizing the roles pretense and language play in preschoolers' ToM development.
There are several ways in exploring young children's pretense. One common view is to observe their spontaneous pretend play in natural settings. Besides, the semantic aspect of language that may contribute to ToM problem mainly involves the using of mental terms, and pretend play is fertile in soliciting such applications. General verbal ability contributes to ToM development as well. Based on the above concerns, this study is to explore the possible relations between preschoolers' false belief understanding and their general verbal ability, their pretend play and the using of mental terms during pretend play.
Fifty-seven 3-5-year-olds from two local kindergartens are involved in this study. All subjects are videotaped for pretend play and measured upon MSCA-CR Verbal Test and standard false belief tasks. Pretend play is coded for 8 categories: object substitution, imaginary play, personification, role assignment, role extension, role play, joint proposal and discussion of pretense. Using of mental terms is categorized as: genuine references to mental states, idioms, conversational use, expression of intention/desire or other references. The results indicate that:
a) Age has main effects on preschoolers' false belief understanding and general verbal ability.
b) After control for age, there is still a positive correlation between preschoolers' false belief understanding and general verbal ability.
c) Preschoolers' using of mental terms is different from pretend context to non-pretend context, and has a developmental orientation from desire to belief.
d) After control for certain factors, preschoolers' false belief understanding is significantly related to their performance on specific categories of pretend play, such as object substitution, personification and role assignment.
e) After control for certain factors, preschoolers' false belief understanding is significantly related to their using of mental terms and the specific category of "idioms"; The correlation with the using of genuine references to mental states is no longer significant.
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