Young children's storybooks as a source of mental state information
Section snippets
Materials
The sample of 90 books consisted of narratives selected from a larger database of over 350 books chosen by experts in the field of children's literature. We especially wished to examine the sorts of books frequently read to young children; therefore, the sample books comprised three subcategories: award-winning books (i.e., Caldecott Award), books nominated by preschool children as their favorites (Sulzby, 1985), and random selections from a comprehensive reference to children's picture books
Results
Preliminary t-tests indicated that there was no difference in mean sentence length (calculated as mean number of words per sentence) in the books for 3–4-year-olds (M=9.02) compared to books for 5–6-year-olds (M=10.19), t(88)=1.44. There was, however, a significant difference in total number of words per book, t(88)=3.34, p<0.005. Books for older children contained more words overall (M=751) than books for younger children (M=473). Thus, books for older children were longer because they had
Discussion
Plausibly, very young children become increasingly sophisticated about their own and others' minds by attending to and conversing about people's desires, emotions, cognitions, and actions Dunn et al., 1991, Astington, 1993. If so, then storybooks could provide a rich source of information for such development. Storybooks for young children are full of characters interacting in situations that children can potentially relate to and understand (e.g., a new sibling, relations with parents,
Conclusions
We have broadened the search for influences on the development of understanding of mind to encompass children's storybook narratives. If one takes the present data set as representative of the kind of library that young children might have, then we have demonstrated the plausibility of storybooks as a source of influence, because these books are rich in explicit verbal references to mental states. Additionally, situational irony, offering a subtle perspective on others' thoughts, motives,
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a Rackham Merit Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Fellowship to the first author. The research was also supported by a grant from The Office of Vice President for Research, University of Michigan, and NICHD grant 22149. We thank several publishers who donated books to the database. We thank Richard Feingold for discussions on irony. We thank Mark Sabbagh and anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. We also thank Jenny
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