Early theory of mind development: Are infants inherently altercentric?

Human social interaction is characterized by the ability to reason about other individuals’ unobservable mental states, referred to as Theory of Mind. For decades, this ability was believed to develop around the age of 4 years, when children start passing the false belief task. In recent years, however, novel infant Theory of Mind tasks have shown that, already in their first 2 years of life, infants make correct predictions of how agents with a false belief are going to act. These findings have triggered a controversial debate on when Theory of Mind develops and whether infants already have a full-fledged Theory of Mind.