<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Narrative ability is an important life-skill and mature narrators do not only provide information about actions and events when telling a story but also include the motivations, emotions and beliefs experienced by protagonists. It is rare for young children to spontaneously explain the beliefs of story characters but the reasons are unclear. In the current study, frog story data from 143 Swedish children aged 4–6 showed that children’s level of explicitness in conveying a fictional false belief was associated with referential narrative ability and use of mental vocabulary, but not to the ability to formulate embedded propositions. Socioeconomic status predicted level of explicitness, whereas no associations were found to age, sex or being multilingual. Future work should examine narrative practices in preschool and in the home more closely, enabling improved support to provide children with equal opportunities.</p>
</abstract>

Narrative ability is an important life-skill and mature narrators do not only provide information about actions and events when telling a story but also include the motivations, emotions and beliefs experienced by protagonists. It is rare for young children to spontaneously explain the beliefs of story characters but the reasons are unclear. In the current study, frog story data from 143 Swedish children aged 4–6 showed that children’s level of explicitness in conveying a fictional false belief was associated with referential narrative ability and use of mental vocabulary, but not to the ability to formulate embedded propositions. Socioeconomic status predicted level of explicitness, whereas no associations were found to age, sex or being multilingual. Future work should examine narrative practices in preschool and in the home more closely, enabling improved support to provide children with equal opportunities.

Conveying a fictional false belief in narrative

Department of Linguistics; Department of Child and Youth Studies

Psychology of Language and Communication

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

{"article-title":"Conveying a fictional false belief in narrative"}

Narrative ability is an important life-skill and mature narrators do not only provide information about actions and events when telling a story but also...

Conveying a fictional false belief in narrative

Published Online: Sep 08, 2022

Page range: 242 - 268

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/plc-2022-0011

Keywords
executive functions, narrative, language development, Theory of Mind, false belief understanding

© 2022 Signe Tonér, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Conveying a fictional false belief in narrative

Published Online: Sep 08, 2022

Page range: 242 - 268

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/plc-2022-0011

Keywordsexecutive functions, narrative, language development, Theory of Mind, false belief understanding

© 2022 Signe Tonér, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
executive functions, narrative, language development, Theory of Mind, false belief understanding