What Makes an Act a Pretense One? Young Children's Pretend-Real Judgments and Explanations

The present study examined what makes an act a pretense one for adults and preschoolers. Participants watched pretense versus real acts, judged whether each act was pretend or real, and justified their judgment by citing the cues they used. These reported cues are presumed to reflect viewers’ conception of what makes an act a pretense one. The results suggested that like adults, 5-year-olds represented pretense behavior in the form of contrasts between pretense and its real counterpart. However, children placed greater weight on deviant content than on behavioral cues, whereas adults used behavioral cues, especially movement, when content information was not available. These results are discussed in terms of how children’s intuitive theories of pretense might differ from those of adults.