On the domain specificity of the mechanisms underpinning spontaneous anticipatory looks in false-belief tasks

Many studies proposed that infants’ and adults’ looking behavior suggest a spontane- ous and implicit ability to reason about others’ beliefs. It has been argued, however, that these successes are false positives due to domain-general processes, such as ret- roactive interference. In this study, we investigated the domain specificity of mecha- nisms underpinning participants’ looking behavior by manipulating the dynamic cues in the event stimuli. Infants aged 15 and 20 months and adults saw animation events in which either a self-moving triangle, or a hand holding an identical inert triangle, chased an animated disk. Most 20-month-olds and adults showed belief congruent anticipatory looks in the agent-triangle condition, whereas they showed no bias in the inert triangle control condition. These results are not consistent with submentalizing accounts based on domain-general low-level processes and provide further support for domain-specific explanations positing an early-emerging mentalistic reasoning.