How do children's interaction with people in their immediate environment develop their theory of mind?

Children's interactions with people in their immediate contexts can also influence the development of theory of mind. Children can be trained in perspective taking. For example, when children are presented with a series of objects that look like a certain thing but are actually something else (candle and apple) and are shown the appearance and real states of the objects, along with explanation, 3-year-olds showed improvements on false belief tasks. Discussion emphasizing the existence of a variety of possible perspectives in relation to an object can improve performance in false belief tasks-dialogue can facilitate the development of theory of mind. Other studies have engaged North American and European children in discussion about the thoughts, beliefs, and desires of characters in stories, especially stories in which characters play tricks to surprise or deceive one another. Children who receive the training improved their performance in subsequent false belief tasks. Similarly, conversation about deceptive objects (e.g., a pen that looked like a flower) also improves performance on false belief tasks.