Helping Young Children to Distinguish Appearance from Reality: The Role of Consecutive versus Simultaneous Dissociation of Representations

Abstract

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that, if the experimental conditions lighten the executive information processing load, young children can improve their ability to distinguish appearance from reality. Sixty normal children aged 3-5 yrs had to perform three appearance-reality (AR) distinction tasks with different executive processing loads: (1) a Deceptive Object Task (classical AR task), which could only be solved by mentally dissociating contradictory representations, (2) an Object Transformation Task, in which the two alternative aspects of the object were physically dissociated and seen in succession, and (3) a Shadow Play Task, where the two alternative aspects of the object were presented simultaneously. The expected gradations in performance were observed, with an interaction between age and type of task and clear-cut facilitation of the youngest children's performance in the Shadow Play Task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)