Teoria umysłu : istota i mechanizmy rozwoju

The main aim of this article is to show that the research on the so-called theories of mind in children constitutes an important domain in cognitive developmental psychology, as it attempts to discover the essence of the development of cognition. Adopting Astington and Baird’s (2005) claim that theories of mind serve the purpose of explaining the mechanisms governing the development of childrens understanding of mental states, we present a review of selected theoretical models. We used the schemata proposed by Gopnik (1996) to prove that in the research on the childrens understanding of mental states one can find the examples of all four main theories which, in the so-called post-Piagetian era, have become the most popular ways of describing and explaining the nature of cognitive change. We consider the theory-theory assumption, modular explanations, information processing and "empirical generalizations". In summary, we emphasize the advantages of having a diversity of models and put forward a claim that the construct of "metacognition" could serve as a basis for the creation of a theoretical synthesis in the research on the essence and mechanism of cognitive development.