One-year-olds spontaneously inform others, but less is known about the emergence of spontaneous misinforming. The current study investigated whether young children who spontaneously inform ignorant others also deliberately misinform others in matched uninstructed interactions. Conceptually, misinforming provides a convincing case for interaction-based, implicit false belief understanding. In a simplified, anticipatory and interactive paradigm, a protagonist puppet played with the child and an object and then hid the object in one of two boxes. When the protagonist was temporarily absent, either her friend or a competitor puppet searched for the hidden object. Children spontaneously joined the play and helped or hindered by informing or misinforming the puppets. Experiment 1 revealed that 2-year-olds spontaneously informed the friend. However, they did not selectively misinform the competitor. In order to exclude methodological biases and replicate previous findings, Experiment 2 tested 3-year-olds, confirming skills for spontaneous misinforming with the same paradigm. Findings reveal that informing, but not misinforming, is part of younger children's early spontaneous communication, which suggests a conceptual distinction in the use of communication and casts doubts on an interactive use of false belief understanding in early interactions.

Mareike Klafka

Ulf Liszkowski

British Journal of Developmental Psychology

The British Journal of Developmental Psychology publishes full-length, empirical, conceptual, review and discussion papers, as well as brief reports, in all of the following areas:     - motor, perceptual, cognitive, social and emotional development in infancy;   - social, emotional and personality development in childhood, adolescence and adulthood;   - cognitive and socio-cognitive development in childhood, adolescence and adulthood, including the development of language, mathematics, theory of mind, drawings, spatial cognition, biological and societal understanding;   - atypical development, including developmental disorders, learning difficulties/disabilities and sensory impairments;

The British Journal of Developmental Psychology publishes full-length empirical studies, conceptual papers, reviews, discussions, and brief reports in the following areas: - motor, perceptual, cognitive, social, and emotional development during infancy; - social, emotional, and personality development throughout childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; - cognitive and socio-cognitive development during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, including the development of language, mathematics, theory of mind, drawing, spatial cognition, and biological and societal understanding; - atypical development, encompassing developmental disorders, learning difficulties/disabilities, and sensory impairments.

《British Journal of Developmental Psychology》期刊发表关于以下领域的完整实证研究、概念性论文、综述和讨论文章，以及简短报告：- 婴儿期的运动、感知、认知、社会和情感发展；- 儿童、青少年和成年期的社会、情感和个性发展；- 儿童、青少年和成年期的认知和社会认知发展，包括语言、数学、心智理论、绘画、空间认知、生物和社会理解的发展；- 非典型发展，包括发展障碍、学习困难/残疾和感官障碍。

Category	Quartile
心理学	3
心理学, 心理学发育	4

Three‐ but not 2‐year‐olds misinform others spontaneously in an interaction‐based task

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Category	Quartile
PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL	2