A interface teoria da mente e linguagem: investigando demandas linguísticas na compreensão de crenças falsas de 1ª ordem na aquisição do português brasileiro

Abstract

This work focuses on the interface between Language and Theory of Mind (ToM), with emphasis on the reasoning of False Beliefs (FBs). It is investigated whether linguistic demands interfere with the way in which children in the process of acquisition of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) deal with standard tasks of First-Order FBs. The definition of ToM has been understood as the ability of humans to understand their own mental states and those of others and thus predict their actions or behaviors (ASTINGTON & GOPNIK, 1988, 1991; FELDMAN, 1992; WELLMAN, 1991). We adopt a psycholinguistic perspective of language acquisition - Syntactic Bootstrapping (GLEITMAN, 1990), combined with a minimalist conception of language (CHOMSKY, 1995-2001). We also consider DE VILLIERS’s (2005-2007) proposal, according to which the syntax of complementation is a prerequisite so that the domain of ToM can be established. An experimental activity was elaborated and it consists of three pre-tests and a classic FB task of location-change (cf. WIMMER & PERNER, 1983). The three pre-tests were applied to 24 children aged 3-4 years old, in order to verify: (i) the child’s ability to assess the true or false character of certain propositions from invented stories (ii) the understanding of interrogative sentences with wh- moved and in situ with epistemic verbs, and (iii) an understanding of simple and complex sentences with epistemic verbs. Whereas the standard test of FB took into account the participation of 24 children aged 3-4 years old and also 24 children aged 5-6 years old. The following linguistic variables were manipulated: a) type of wh-(in situ and moved), b) sentence type (simple - To John, where is the ball? and complex - Where does John Think the ball is?). The hypothesis is that the syntax of complementation is a necessary prerequisite, but not sufficient, so that the domain of FBs is established. The results indicate that: for the three pre-tests, children in this age group are able to establish the mapping of an event to a proposition and judge its truth value, regardless of the syntactic structure in which it appears, in relation to the task of FB, (i) there was a significant difference between the children’s responses of both age-groups, because the 3-4 year-old children had a lower number of correct answers in relation to those of 5-6 years old, (ii) in the responses involving simple and complex sentences, there was no relevant difference, and (iii) there was a significant difference in the type of wh- in the 3-4 year-old age group, because the number of correct answers was higher when there was no displacement of the interrogative pronoun. These results are consistent with the hypothesis presented, since the younger children had a very expressive number of correct answers in both conditions with simple sentences and in those with complex sentences, and the oldest ones achieved a very significant number in both conditions. This suggests that the ability to operate recursively and the domain of epistemic verbs are not sufficient conditions for understanding FBs.