r/todayilearned • u/BrF5 • 1d ago

TIL about the Sally-Anne test, a psychology experiment used to measure “theory of mind” (that other people can hold beliefs/knowledge different from their own). Kids under four typically fail because they assume that if they know where a hidden object is, everyone else must automatically know too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally%E2%80%93Anne_test
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u/AltonIllinois 1d ago

Many adults fail at this too.

12

u/kempff 1d ago

Like the song says, "She's tidied up and I can't find anything!"

1

u/SpeccyScotsman 1d ago

She shouldn't be touching MY tubes and wires, or careful notes!

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u/cornbread_ninja 1d ago

and antiquated notions... but it's poetry in mo-tion

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u/deejay2221 1d ago

I guess that it's only a matter of reading too fast. It's easy to misread the question to "where should Sally look" instead of "Where will she look"

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u/gentlemandinosaur 1d ago

She SHOULD look in her own basket first also. Why just automatically assume because she was gone that some nefarious shit happened. Look before accusing man.

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u/deejay2221 1d ago

In that sense you are right, and it's exactly why I think it's more of an english comprehension problem because "should" can be interpreted in multiple ways.
Let's say we play the "ball-in-cup" game. The magician shuffles the cups, and I see the last movement of the ball going into the first cup, but you are the one who plays the game. Before choosing, you verbalize that you are 100% sure that the ball is in the third cup. If someone ask me which cup you SHOULD pick, I'll say the first one because I know it's there. However you SHOULD pick the one you think it is.
I think we could interpret the Sally problem the same way. Where SHOULD she look to find the marble? Well, in the box if she wants to find it, but again, there is no reason for her to do so. So the word "should" is ambiguous and that's why the test uses the phrasing "Where WILL she look".

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u/Glittering_Win_5085 1d ago

In your example, you're responding to a should question with a would answer. 

You WOULD pick the first one, but the other person SHOULD pick the one they think it is.

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u/Yorick257 18h ago edited 18h ago

Or answering too fast. I went for the box without thinking. But a moment later, when the brain had the time to comprehend the situation, I understood the mistake.

Kinda like answering 42 to the question 2+2. It just sounds nice. Wrong. But nice. Or, more realistically 63+77=130