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Title: Is It Oscar-Worthy? Childrens Metarepresentational Understanding of Acting

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2015

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Abstract: Although it is an essential aspect of one of the most common forms of entertainment, psychologists know almost nothing about how children understand the act of portraying a character in a realistic mannerrealistic acting. Do children possess the sort of meta-theory of acting that adults possess? In two studies we find that, unlike adults, children between the ages of 35 do not think that a realistic actor is better at portraying a characteristic than a nonrealistic actor, nor do they prefer one to the other. As they develop, they come to understand that realistic acting is different from nonrealistic acting, but unlike adults, children think that a nonrealistic, pretense-like portrayal is more difficult to achieve than a realistic representation of an emotional or physical state. These findings show that childrens metarepresentational understanding of acting is relatively immature at age 5, and that their understanding of this specific domain of pretense lags behind their understanding of pretense in general.

Url: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0119604

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Authors: Goldstein, Thalia R.; Bloom, Paul

Publisher: PLOS One

Data Collections: IPUMS Time Use - ATUS

Topics: Other

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