Whether young children understand that others may hold false beliefs is a hotly
debated topic in psychology and neuroscience. Much evidence suggests that
children do not pass this milestone in their understanding of other people until
the age of 5 years. Other evidence suggests that they understand already in
their second year. This study proposes a novel account of the logic of
conversations about certain mental states. By modifying the discourse
accordingly, children passed three false belief tasks at 3 years of age while
they failed standard false belief tasks. The results support the view that even
young children construe other people in adult-like psychological terms
