Science & technology | Multilingualism

Do you see what I see?

Children exposed to several languages are better at seeing through others’ eyes

HUMAN beings are not born with the knowledge that others possess minds with different contents. Children develop such a “theory of mind” gradually, and even adults have it only imperfectly. But a study by Samantha Fan and Zoe Liberman at the University of Chicago, published in Psychological Science, finds that bilingual children, and also those simply exposed to another language on a regular basis, have an edge at the business of getting inside others’ minds.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Do you see what I see?”

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