Abstract
The "False belief test" has been one of the paradigmatic tests used to examine attribution of mental states to other subjects by preschooler children. Several works confirm that this test correlates with other tests, such as Hannoi´s tower or Wisconsin´ s Cards Tests, all of which require central executive control. Alan Leslie and James Russell affirm that the "false belief test" requires the inhibition of a salient response (determined by a perceptual input) and the use of a partially arbitrary rule.
In this work I study the incidence of this factors in belief attribution. I evaluate performance of preschooler children in two tests that require the attribution of false beliefs, and with two tests that involve the participation of executive components.
The data shows that 3 years old children are capable of solving problems that require mental adscription, as long as problems are simplified. It also shows correlation between the standard false beliefs test and the non-mentalist test. This indicates that the reported low performance of 3 year old children can be explained with the notion of ?executive functions?.
Key Words: False Belief Test- Executive Functions- Mental Attribution
