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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 2: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 2: and today we're going to begin a series of episodes

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Speaker 2: looking at the topic of pretend play. And yes, folks,

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Speaker 2: this is one of my baby Looked at You topics,

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Speaker 2: inspired directly by watching my currently two year old daughter's

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Speaker 2: wonderful and frightening brain become ever more powerful day by day. Lately,

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Speaker 2: she has been all about pretending. Sometimes it is pretending

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Speaker 2: to be things. Robert, I can't remember if I told

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Speaker 2: you about the Christmas Elf. Do you know the Christmas Elf?

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Speaker 1: Do I know the Christmas self? Well, there are many elves.

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Speaker 2: This is different than the one on the shelf. This

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Speaker 2: is so my daughter pretends to be this thing called

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Speaker 2: the Christmas Elf, which mostly just like makes a grotesque

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Speaker 2: kind of gargoyle face and dances wildly to black Sabbath.

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Speaker 2: That's what Christmas elf is.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, you're bringing her up right then. That seems

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Speaker 1: that seems more in keeping with some of the more

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Speaker 1: archaic forms of elf that we've discussed on the show.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. Knowing me, that may sound like

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Speaker 2: a trained behavior, but this is just what naturally emerged

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Speaker 2: from her. I don't know where she got that. That's

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Speaker 2: what Christmas elf is. She's like data put on Black

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Speaker 2: Sabbath record, but it runs around, dance into that. And

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Speaker 2: then one of the good pretending to be things the

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Speaker 2: other day was she was she's been playing with some

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Speaker 2: little little doggies that she got for Christmas, little doggie toys,

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Speaker 2: and one of them is a bagle, so she you know,

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Speaker 2: she likes talking about the beagle and hearing about the beagle.

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Speaker 2: But she was talking to Rachel the other day and

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Speaker 2: she I think she was saying wolf wolf and Rachel said, oh,

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Speaker 2: are you a beagle right now? And she said, no,

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Speaker 2: tater tot. Very still, I don't know what exactly are

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Speaker 2: the properties one mimics when being a tater Todd that

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Speaker 2: I can't fully inhabit that mindset, but I admire the ambition.

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Speaker 1: Well, I guess it is of the various fried and

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Speaker 1: or baked potato food products. So it's the tater tots

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Speaker 1: are the most canine of the bunch, So sure, yeah.

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Speaker 2: But a lot of it is. So there's a little

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Speaker 2: bit of pretending to be things. But a lot more

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Speaker 2: of it is what when we get into the research

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Speaker 2: later in this episode, is what is sometimes called replica play.

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Speaker 2: It is pretending with the aid of toys or props,

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Speaker 2: little agent toys, and making them pretend to do things.

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Speaker 2: So she's got a bunch of dinosaurs, and she loves

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Speaker 2: to make her dinosaurs go night night, and then rapidly

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Speaker 2: wake up and then go night night again, over and

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Speaker 2: over in like a mind rendingly fast circadian rhythm. She

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Speaker 2: loves to have our little dinosaurs and creatures eat pizza.

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Speaker 2: And there's a lot of discussion of to what extent

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Speaker 2: there's sharing the pizza or not, or to what extent

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Speaker 2: they're keeping pieces of pizza to themselves. Sometimes they're eating

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Speaker 2: things that you can see there's like a physical prop

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Speaker 2: for the food. Sometimes they're just eating purely imagine everything.

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Speaker 2: So there's cake there that's invisible cake. And then the

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Speaker 2: past few days she's been into going on a boat

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Speaker 2: on the couch, which is a book on the couch cushion.

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Speaker 2: The couch cushion is the water and the book is

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Speaker 2: the boat, and she puts various things on the boat

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Speaker 2: and they get on and off the boat and see

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Speaker 2: things out on the water, and typically they're on a

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Speaker 2: boat trip to grandparents' house.

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Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, it's a magical time. My own child is

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Speaker 1: twelve going on thirteen now, so a lot of these

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Speaker 1: really awesome examples of imagination play are in the past now,

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Speaker 1: but my wife and I certainly look back on them

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Speaker 1: with a lot of funness, and some of them are

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Speaker 1: still things we frequently discuss in our you know, day

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Speaker 1: to day conversations, even a reference rather. But yeah, I remember,

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Speaker 1: I remember various antics with these, like old plastic dinosaur

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Speaker 1: toys from my childhood, and so those would eat those

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Speaker 1: dinosaurs were always eating things. I can't remember how much

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Speaker 1: of it was real, how much of it was imagined.

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Speaker 1: And they wouldn't so much go to sleep as they

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Speaker 1: would occasionally go extinct. There was some sort of a

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Speaker 1: cosmic event that would make them all go extinct, but

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Speaker 1: you know then they'd be back up and running before

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Speaker 1: too long.

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Speaker 2: That's intense pretend. Yeah, yeah, facing the realities of nature

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Speaker 2: head on.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, you tell the story of the dinosaurs,

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Speaker 1: you gotta tell the beginning, the middle of the end.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, ma, these are evolving into birds.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Well, we did touch on that aspect

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Speaker 1: of it too, but we also inevitably or I inevitably

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Speaker 1: ended up sort of busting out these sort of childhood

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Speaker 1: version of dinosaurs that I had growing up, which was

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Speaker 1: less about the bird thing and more about just catastrophic

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Speaker 1: fireballs and so forth and exploding volcanoes. We've referenced before that,

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Speaker 1: like almost all of those old paleo art paleo art

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Speaker 1: examples from childhood dinosaur books of like the late seventies

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Speaker 1: and the nineteen eighties, they all had an erupting volcano

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Speaker 1: in the background, so.

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Speaker 2: It's actively erupting at the moment.

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Speaker 1: And it was kind of implied or I always thought like,

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Speaker 1: that's the end back there. It's what's happening. It's the

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Speaker 1: end of days for the dinosaurs.

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Speaker 2: I think it's important to get both visions. Yeah, you know,

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Speaker 2: you get the long scale evolutionary EON's point of view,

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Speaker 2: and then you also get the scary part of fantasia

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Speaker 2: of you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I'm excited about these episodes though, getting into

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Speaker 1: imagination play. It's a topic that you know, I think

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Speaker 1: we've touched on before on the show, at least in passing.

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Speaker 1: There may be some very old episodes that deal with

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Speaker 1: some of the issues we're going to bring up here,

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Speaker 1: But it's going to be nice to really dive into

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Speaker 1: all of this.

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Speaker 2: A new yeah, And I'm not sure yet how many

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Speaker 2: episodes we're going to go to in this series. We're

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Speaker 2: looking at least two, but maybe three or more if

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Speaker 2: the topic takes us there. But this is a rich subject.

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Speaker 2: There's a lot of scientific research in this area, but

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Speaker 2: also just a lot of interesting philosophical thought going back centuries.

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Speaker 2: So there's going to be a lot to get into.

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Speaker 2: But I thought a good place to start would just

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Speaker 2: be a good broad sort of overview paper looking at

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Speaker 2: the subject from a psychology, cognitive science, and child development

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Speaker 2: point of view. And I found a good paper in

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Speaker 2: that regard by Dina Skolnik Weisberg, published in the journal

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Speaker 2: Cognitive Science in twenty fifteen called Pretend Play and so, Rob,

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Speaker 2: if you're ready, I thought we should just go ahead

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Speaker 2: and dive right into this paper and talk about some

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Speaker 2: of the topics brought up in it, some of the

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Speaker 2: research covered, and then we can branch out from there.

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Speaker 1: All right, let's do it.

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Speaker 2: So we start with definitions. Weisberg defines pretend play as

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Speaker 2: any playful behavior that involves non literal action, so to paraphrase,

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Speaker 2: play that operates on the premise of a thing or

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Speaker 2: situation being other than what it literally is. So there

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Speaker 2: are types of play that are not pretend to play.

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Speaker 2: You can think of a game of tag or a

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Speaker 2: game of kickball. This is clearly play, but it's not

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Speaker 2: really pretend to play because what you're I mean, you

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Speaker 2: could imagine versions that involve pretend elements, but at the baseline,

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Speaker 2: this is a game that is taken literally. What the

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Speaker 2: children mostly think they're doing is playing the literal game.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like a game of kickball is just a

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Speaker 1: game of kickball unless you do what I do distinctly

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Speaker 1: remember doing when I was a kid, is pretending that

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Speaker 1: kickball with some sort of like sci fi gladiatorial combats anario,

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Speaker 1: you know, and imagine kids are probably doing some molre

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Speaker 1: things today, like imagining it's squid games, and so I

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Speaker 1: guess it depends on the age, but you know, dreaming

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Speaker 1: it up a little bit, adding that layer of imagination

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Speaker 1: on top of it.

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Speaker 2: I recall specifically doing this with tag because I enjoyed

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Speaker 2: playing tag a lot, and my friends and I in

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Speaker 2: elementary school age played tag, but I remember I would

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Speaker 2: spice it up mentally, sometimes with the cooperation of others

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Speaker 2: or maybe just in my own mind, by imagining myself

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Speaker 2: and other players as characters from movies I liked in

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Speaker 2: the context of tag. So like, I just saw the

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Speaker 2: movie Anaconda starring Ice Cube and Jenni Phi Lopez, you know,

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Speaker 2: and and I am now pretending to be this character

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Speaker 2: from Anaconda as we play tag. You know, I was

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Speaker 2: probably that was probably too mature of a movie for

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Speaker 2: me at that point.

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Speaker 1: But we need to come back to Anaconda on a

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Speaker 1: weirdest cinema.

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Speaker 2: By the way, it's it's so good, one of the

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Speaker 2: most unhinged performances of all time John Voyd in that movie.

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Speaker 1: All right, right, so I think everybody gets where we're

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Speaker 1: going with this. Yeah, it's like there's like basically like

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Speaker 1: pure sport is not imaginative.

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Speaker 2: And then there are other kinds of play that once

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Speaker 2: again could break down either way. So building with blocks

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Speaker 2: could be pretend to play on how you're playing, but

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Speaker 2: it isn't necessarily you might just be building with blocks.

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Speaker 2: And so sometimes when I build with blocks with my daughter,

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Speaker 2: the impression I get is that it's just about building

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Speaker 2: with blocks. You know, she wants to build a big tower,

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Speaker 2: make a bunch of blocks. But if you think about

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Speaker 2: it as we are building a skyscraper and there are

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Speaker 2: going to be people living inside it and so forth,

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Speaker 2: then I guess it is pretend play.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Like you get into some of the bigger kid

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Speaker 1: uses of Legos. For example, I remember doing this, and

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Speaker 1: I've seen my child do this as well, where you

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Speaker 1: are really almost creating an imaginative fetish item out of

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Speaker 1: the out of the blocks. You know, it's some sort

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Speaker 1: of a character or a creature or you know, in

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Speaker 1: my case it was often some sort of a robot

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Speaker 1: or a mech suit, you know, whatever the case may be.

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Speaker 1: And it is about connecting blocks together and building something,

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Speaker 1: making a form. But then you were like filling that

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Speaker 1: form with more meaning via your imagination.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. But okay, so here's where like clear pretend

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Speaker 2: play comes in. When my child picks up an old

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Speaker 2: DVD player remote control that we took the batteries out

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Speaker 2: of and holds it up to her ear and says

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Speaker 2: that she is calling her grandmother on the phone, that's

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Speaker 2: definitely pretend to play. At some level, she knows the

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Speaker 2: remote is not a phone, and you know, Nana does

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Speaker 2: not talk back to her, but she likes to pretend

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Speaker 2: and thinks it's very funny.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, my child also did a lot of phone

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Speaker 1: pretend play as well, picking up various items, remote controls, blocks,

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Speaker 1: what have you, pretending their phones.

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Speaker 2: So that's a pretty clear case. Coming back to more

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Speaker 2: ambiguous cases. Oh, one that I think is huge is

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Speaker 2: like play fighting. Play fighting could be non pretend to play.

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Speaker 2: It could be understood as just literally a form of

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Speaker 2: kind of free form wrestling competition between children or kids

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Speaker 2: engaging in play fighting might be assuming the non literal

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Speaker 2: form of characters and a scenario.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, my mind here instantly goes to lightsaber fighting because

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Speaker 1: my own child did a lot of this and it

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Speaker 1: took different forms. Right, Because if you're gonna pretend to

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Speaker 1: fight with lightsabers, you can have a full like official

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Speaker 1: lightsaber toy with an extendable plastic cone that serves as

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Speaker 1: the blade of the lightsaber or laser sort if you will.

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Speaker 1: And but then you then you can have just a

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Speaker 1: pre made hilt that you're pretending there is a light

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Speaker 1: blade emanating from you can do what my child did

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Speaker 1: and take foil like roll of foil, roll of saran

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Speaker 1: wrap tubes, little cardboard tubes, dress those up as lightsaber hilts,

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Speaker 1: and then you're fighting with those, pretending again that the

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Speaker 1: blade is there. Or you can do what I think

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Speaker 1: a lot of kids do, is you just pretend the

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Speaker 1: hilt is there as well, so I can draw a

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Speaker 1: lightsaber right now and just go and you know, you

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Speaker 1: know exactly what I have in my hand, and you

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Speaker 1: can engage in battles, and so they are like different

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Speaker 1: levels of having any kind of like actual physical property

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Speaker 1: there to play off off.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. So you can imagine there's sort of

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Speaker 2: different levels of extension of the imagination depending on what

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Speaker 2: physical props you're using, or how far away the situation

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Speaker 2: or scenario or object you're imagining is from the physical reality.

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Speaker 2: So you know, there's a sort of greater imaginative leap

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Speaker 2: involved in taking a paper towel tube and saying that's

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Speaker 2: a lightsaber than holding like a toy painted up to

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Speaker 2: look like a real lightsaber and saying that's a real lightsaber.

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Speaker 2: Both involve some imagination, but one kind of is a

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Speaker 2: bigger leap and then it's even a bigger leap to

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Speaker 2: take nothing at all. Just you know, you're completely imagining

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Speaker 2: the presence of a prop in any case, and say

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Speaker 2: that's the lightsaber.

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Speaker 1: And then is it me with the lightsaber to your point?

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Speaker 1: Or am i obi wan? Am i anakin? Yeah? And

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Speaker 1: so forth. So yeah, there's so many different levels of

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Speaker 1: the imagination to employ here.

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Speaker 2: So the purpose of this review by Weisberg was to

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Speaker 2: define pretend play, to differentiate it from other types of

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Speaker 2: playful activities, and then to kind of look at ways

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Speaker 2: that pretend to play fits into the development of various

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Speaker 2: cognitive and social skills in childhood. And since pretend play

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Speaker 2: seems to involve many of the same mental structures as

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Speaker 2: complex adult capacities like counterfactual reasoning, theory of mind, symbolic understanding,

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Speaker 2: and so forth, looking at pretend to play really could

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Speaker 2: help us better understand many aspects of the brain and

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Speaker 2: the mind. So this review in particular looks at the

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Speaker 2: relationship between pretend play and symbolic understanding, theory of mind,

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Speaker 2: and counterfactual reasoning. I think we might save at least

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Speaker 2: one of those. I think the deeper exploration of theory

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Speaker 2: of mind for part two, because that gets into a

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Speaker 2: lot of other stuff. But I'm going to try to

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Speaker 2: talk about symbolic understanding and counterfactual reasoning today. But the

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Speaker 2: author kicks things off by trying to define and characterize

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Speaker 2: pretend to play itself. Now, even going back a step,

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Speaker 2: not just pretend to play, but play as a concept,

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Speaker 2: has proven notoriously difficult for researchers. There's like a whole

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Speaker 2: literature arguing over what play is, what definition best captures

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Speaker 2: the essence of play, What do we mean when we

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Speaker 2: call something play, Which types of edge cases count and

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Speaker 2: which do not. So play is just extremely variable from

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Speaker 2: child to child, across different cultures. Different people look at

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Speaker 2: the same activity and say that is play. No, that's

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Speaker 2: not play. So there's really no way to draw a

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Speaker 2: clean boundary around this concept that everybody's going to accept.

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Speaker 2: You will just have to sit with the fact that

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Speaker 2: some people are going to say, no, I don't agree

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Speaker 2: that that's what play.

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Speaker 1: Is, right, And this is going to kind of continue

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Speaker 1: through our whole analysis of pretend play, because there's going

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Speaker 1: to be a lot of going back and forth. Well,

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Speaker 1: while some researchers say this classifies as such and such

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Speaker 1: and others disagree. Yeah, it just depends how you tease

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Speaker 1: it apart.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that's certainly the case. I mean, we are in

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Speaker 2: the higher order sciences. We're more in the realm of

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Speaker 2: psychology and cognitive science and a lot of things. They're

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Speaker 2: just not as clean as they are in chemistry. Now,

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Speaker 2: one of the main criteria that seems to be common

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Speaker 2: to definitions of play is that it is what Weisberg

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Speaker 2: calls non instrumental activity, meaning it has no immediate goal

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Speaker 2: or purpose other than enjoyment. So you might actually enjoy

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Speaker 2: something that is not play. Maybe you enjoy splitting logs

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Speaker 2: into firewood. But even if you do, most people would

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Speaker 2: not think of splitting wood as play because it has

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Speaker 2: an immediate functional goal. It's about transforming resources into a

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Speaker 2: more usable form. So even if I don't know, you

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Speaker 2: bring a spirit of playfulness to your log splitting and

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Speaker 2: you really enjoyed the activity, most people don't look at

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Speaker 2: that and say that is play.

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Speaker 1: This is really interesting to think about this distinction, because

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Speaker 1: you know, I catch myself as what I like to

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Speaker 1: think is a pretty pro play adult, rationalizing that some

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Speaker 1: of my hobbies like many painting, for instance, rationalizing it

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Speaker 1: on the basis that, well, this is going to result

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Speaker 1: in something that can be utilized in another activity, generally

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Speaker 1: a social activity, and therefore it's not like there's not

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Speaker 1: this huge sunk cost to it, you know, it's not

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Speaker 1: a big waste of time, which you know, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of false thinking and all of that, I think.

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Speaker 1: And likewise, yeah, you know, I've often thought about, or

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Speaker 1: at least I've thought about this more over the last

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Speaker 1: ten years or so, about how, you know, especially in

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Speaker 1: a very capitalist society, I think a lot of us

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Speaker 1: end up buying into this corrupting notion that if we're

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Speaker 1: good at some thing, if we or even if we

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Speaker 1: just enjoy something, if it brings us pleasure, well, then

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Speaker 1: shouldn't we be generating some profits off of our love

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Speaker 1: or our talent or what have you? You know, And

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Speaker 1: I should add the caveat you know, and there's nothing,

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Speaker 1: absolutely nothing wrong with turning your passion, your hobby, your

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Speaker 1: talent into a career or a side hustle making a

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Speaker 1: few bucks off of it here and there, even if

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Speaker 1: you're just sort of paying for part of that hobby. Certainly, yeah,

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Speaker 1: go wild. But we should also feel free to play

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Speaker 1: without having to deal with this inner voice saying, well,

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Speaker 1: you're not good enough at it unless you can somehow

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Speaker 1: transition that fun over into a profit. You know that

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Speaker 1: that any time spent having fun, anytime spent playing, is

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Speaker 1: like just wasted time. You know, it's okay to engage

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Speaker 1: in passions that pay only in fun, you know, or

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Speaker 1: maybe socialization. And this is a huge one for me too,

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Speaker 1: that I distinctly remember somebody sharing this with me several

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Speaker 1: years back, that you know, it's okay not to be

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Speaker 1: perfect at your passions and hobbies. You know, I think

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Speaker 1: a lot of times, like without even thinking about, without

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Speaker 1: even rationalizing that like out loud in our or or

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Speaker 1: you know, at a higher level of consciousness, you know,

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Speaker 1: we still sort of buy into this idea that it's like, well,

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Speaker 1: I'm a grown up. If I'm doing if I'm engaging

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Speaker 1: in play, well then can I turn this into a business?

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Speaker 1: Can I make it? You know? Can I somehow rationalize

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Speaker 1: it through the almighty dollar so that that ends up

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Speaker 1: being how far removed we are, as often are as

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Speaker 1: adults from like the pure childhood essence of play.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I fully agree with all that. In fact, you know,

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Speaker 2: people you may have heard some version of this advice before.

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Speaker 2: But I would go against the grain with with people

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Speaker 2: who say, you know, find a way to get paid

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Speaker 2: for doing what you love, or you know, it's like,

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Speaker 2: take your passion and turn that into a job, because

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Speaker 2: that may mean that every day you get to do

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Speaker 2: what you love, or it may mean that what is

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Speaker 2: something that you used to love just gets turned into

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Speaker 2: a chore.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and you know, certainly you hear stories about

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Speaker 1: people who seem perfectly content with turning their passion into

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Speaker 1: their job. But you also hear plenty of stories about

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Speaker 1: people who have the reverse situation, or the thing that

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Speaker 1: you still love has now become the thing they have

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Speaker 1: to do every day.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, I guess nobody can figure it out for

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Speaker 2: you whether that's going to be true in your case

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Speaker 2: or not. So you'll just have to experiment, but be

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Speaker 2: aware that that does happen.

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Speaker 1: But this is not a problem that the children.

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Speaker 2: Have correct though. I do want to stress while we're

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Speaker 2: here that though we most often associate play with childhood,

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Speaker 2: I think I've said on the show before that I

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Speaker 2: think play is the work of childhood. When children are playing,

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Speaker 2: they're doing their job. It does extend through the entire lifespan.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's clear that even adults going all throughout

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Speaker 2: the lifetime engage in different types of play. There are games,

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Speaker 2: there's word play, construction play, role playing of various kinds.

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Speaker 2: So you know it doesn't stop after childhood, but clearly

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Speaker 2: childhood is the most intensive period of play in life. Now,

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Speaker 2: pretend play specifically has an extended definition that takes it

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Speaker 2: beyond just play generally, and Weisberg summarizes it as follows quote,

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Speaker 2: pretend play crucially involves some form of representation or acting

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Speaker 2: as if such that the behaviors or actions that take

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Speaker 2: place in a pretend game are not meant to literally

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Speaker 2: reflect reality. So there is some extent to which what

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Speaker 2: happens in pretend play is understood by the people playing

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Speaker 2: to not be literally real. Now, there are a lot

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Speaker 2: of different types of pretend play, and I got interested

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Speaker 2: in the taxonomy of these play These almost like family

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Speaker 2: trees of play type. And one that is very familiar

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Speaker 2: to most people is object substitution pretend. This is treating

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Speaker 2: one object as if it were another. So we already

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Speaker 2: mentioned the remote control is a telephone. It can't actually

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Speaker 2: place calls, but you hold it up to your head,

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Speaker 2: you say hello, you say ring ring, you pretend to

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Speaker 2: call your grandmother whatever.

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Speaker 1: Another one that I have to mention is, of course

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Speaker 1: stick is a gun. This one. I remember encountering this

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Speaker 1: one a lot on the playground. Generally, you'd have like

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Speaker 1: one group of children in my recollection, you know, playing peacefully,

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Speaker 1: doing something cute, and then here come another band of

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Speaker 1: children and they have sticks, and then they start firing

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Speaker 1: sticks as if they are guns. Always a hot discussion

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Speaker 1: on parenting forums. So get ready for that one, Joe.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I know that's coming. But at the same time,

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Speaker 2: I don't want I mean, I'm not thrilled about the

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Speaker 2: idea of sticks as guns. But at the same time,

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Speaker 2: I don't want to totally demonize conflict play. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I think there's probably some healthy amount of kind of

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Speaker 2: you know, the non bullying forms of kind of play

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Speaker 2: fighting and stuff that can be okay. But there's also

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Speaker 2: like a you know, a caretaking play, you know, treating

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Speaker 2: the treating the little plastic dinosaur as a baby.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Often a lot of I remember, a lot

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Speaker 1: of food preparation and foraging play.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. In fact, tying into

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Speaker 2: Christmas pretend play experience is just just recently, Yeah, my

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Speaker 2: daughter has been big into making pretend food for her

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Speaker 2: for her babies and dinosaurs and everything to eat. And

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Speaker 2: the making of the pretend food is so chaotic, it's

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Speaker 2: truly marvelous. Like, you know, there's a little pretend pot,

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Speaker 2: and into it goes the box of rice with the

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Speaker 2: box and a banana and a hot dog and a

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Speaker 2: you know, and grapes and everything, and you're just imagining

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Speaker 2: all of this together and it's like, do you think

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Speaker 2: that would taste good? Yeah? Yeah, But to jump out

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Speaker 2: of the pretend mindset for a second. One thing that

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Speaker 2: Weissberg sort of specifies about object substitution play is that

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Speaker 2: in this kind of play, actions that are directed toward

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Speaker 2: the object do not actually affect the object in the

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Speaker 2: intended way. They take place, you know, within what is

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Speaker 2: called a pretend world or a pretend frame. So when

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Speaker 2: the child pretends to cook pretend food in a you know,

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Speaker 2: in a toy pod or something, the food does not

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Speaker 2: actually get heated to the point of boiling or whatever.

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Speaker 2: There's just generally a pretend logic of the effects of

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Speaker 2: actions upon the object that is substituted. Now coming back

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Speaker 2: to a question we raised earlier. Sometimes it is not

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Speaker 2: clear if a play behavior is pretend play or just

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Speaker 2: literal play. Like we brought up the idea of a

435
00:23:45,760 --> 00:23:48,000
Speaker 2: child building with blocks, so they're building a big stack

436
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:51,200
Speaker 2: of blocks. Are they just building a big stack of blocks,

437
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:55,040
Speaker 2: or are they pretending to build a structure that people

438
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:59,840
Speaker 2: live inside. Sometimes the distinction could be blurry and fluid,

439
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,199
Speaker 2: easily switching back and forth between the literal frame and

440
00:24:03,240 --> 00:24:05,800
Speaker 2: the pretend frame. For you know, in one minute, it

441
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:07,960
Speaker 2: might be just a stack of blocks. The next minute, oh,

442
00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 2: it is a building full of people. Then they might

443
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:11,879
Speaker 2: forget it's a building full of people and it's just

444
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:16,600
Speaker 2: blocks again. And this problem of temporal switching between literal

445
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:20,280
Speaker 2: play and pretend play can of course create difficulties for

446
00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:24,679
Speaker 2: researchers who want to study this same distinction with play fighting, right, like,

447
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:27,399
Speaker 2: are we literally just wrestling? Or am I Dwayne the

448
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,600
Speaker 2: Rock Johnson and your Jason Stathum or whatever. Yeah.

449
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:32,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting to think about how the switches back

450
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 1: and forth not only with kids, but as adults. Like,

451
00:24:35,400 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 1: you know, you can think of something like writing. You know,

452
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:42,359
Speaker 1: at times writing can take on a feeling of play,

453
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:46,680
Speaker 1: you know where you're losing yourself in an imaginative exercise.

454
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 1: But then oh, you've got to stop and do a

455
00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 1: little grammar or a little bit of it work. I

456
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:54,960
Speaker 1: guess nowadays, are you in the old days, it would

457
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 1: have been oh, now I have to fix the typewriter.

458
00:24:56,600 --> 00:25:00,160
Speaker 1: You know, there are various tasks we engage in well

459
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:02,920
Speaker 1: shift gears on us. Now.

460
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:05,800
Speaker 2: One question is when does this happen in childhood? The

461
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:09,879
Speaker 2: answer is it varies, but pretend play behavior most often

462
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 2: starts to appear around eighteen months old or so, though

463
00:25:13,280 --> 00:25:16,919
Speaker 2: there's variation in the timeline, so you know, sometimes it's earlier,

464
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 2: sometimes it's later. Usually the earliest form of pretend play

465
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:25,680
Speaker 2: observed is what we were just talking about. Its object substitution,

466
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:30,600
Speaker 2: pretending an object is something else. Now, interesting question is

467
00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:33,600
Speaker 2: why does that come first, to come before these other

468
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,800
Speaker 2: types of pretend play that I'm about to get into.

469
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:40,840
Speaker 2: Maybe we can come back to that later. A variation

470
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 2: on object substitution is what you already mentioned, with the

471
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:47,440
Speaker 2: sort of the receding physical prop concept of the lightsaber

472
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 2: arising usually in early preschool years maybe meaning around two

473
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:56,399
Speaker 2: to three years old. Is object substitution involving invisible or

474
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 2: non existent objects. So usually you get with a prop

475
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 2: object substitution first. That might start around eighteen months or so,

476
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 2: and then you know, in the next couple of years,

477
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 2: you can get fully pretend phone. So it's not like

478
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,000
Speaker 2: I'm holding a remote and pretending it's a phone. There's

479
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:13,119
Speaker 2: nothing in my hand, but I have a phone and

480
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:18,200
Speaker 2: I'm calling grandmother. Also in the early preschool years, Weisberg

481
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:20,680
Speaker 2: says that kids start to make a distinction between two

482
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:26,200
Speaker 2: different things. They distinguish between what's called enactment play versus

483
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:30,800
Speaker 2: replica play, and so the difference goes like this, enactment

484
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 2: play is like I dress up like Dad and pretend

485
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 2: to cook dinner like him, possibly involving props. You know,

486
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:39,960
Speaker 2: you might have a play kitchen and toy utensils and

487
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:42,560
Speaker 2: food or not involving these props, just doing it with

488
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,639
Speaker 2: the invisible but I am the one pretending with my

489
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:49,479
Speaker 2: body to be the something else. Versus replica play is

490
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:53,160
Speaker 2: I have my doll cook dinner in a tiny kitchen

491
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 2: in the dollhouse. Both are forms of pretend play, but

492
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,480
Speaker 2: in enactment play, the child is themself playing the part,

493
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:03,800
Speaker 2: and in replica play the child makes a physical avatar

494
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:08,199
Speaker 2: like a doll play the part now springboarding off of that,

495
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 2: the paper gets into something that we may put off

496
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:12,400
Speaker 2: because I don't know if you want to say something

497
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 2: about this now, Robb, or if you just want to

498
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 2: save it for part two. But it does get into

499
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:18,679
Speaker 2: imaginary companions as well.

500
00:27:18,840 --> 00:27:22,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, largely we'll save that for the next episode. But

501
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 1: I will like briefly mention that you know you can

502
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:26,679
Speaker 1: still you can still get into distinctions of what is

503
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 1: an imaginary friend, what is an imaginary companion, and how

504
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: sometimes personified objects are seen as examples of imaginary companions.

505
00:27:38,280 --> 00:27:41,800
Speaker 1: So you know, it's one of these things where it's

506
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 1: easy to think, oh, imaginary friend, that's a that's a

507
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: definitely one thing. It's definitely an invisible counterpart that a

508
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 1: child has this imagined relationship with. But when you get

509
00:27:54,600 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: into the particularly I was looking at one meta analysis

510
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 1: that I'll reference in the next episode. It it gets

511
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: a little more complex than that, and there are different

512
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:03,760
Speaker 1: ways of again teasing it apart.

513
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes there's a prop there too, Like a classic

514
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 2: example is Hobbes in Calvin and Hobbes. This is a

515
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 2: understood to be in physical reality a stuffed animal, but

516
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:16,560
Speaker 2: it is imagined by the child to be an entity

517
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 2: with a consistent personality that the child interacts with over time,

518
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 2: in which case it really is sort of a form

519
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:26,439
Speaker 2: of imaginary companion, even though there is a physically existing prop.

520
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, and sometimes that prop I was reading, you know,

521
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:33,040
Speaker 1: it can actually seem to enhance the imaginative aspect. So

522
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: you know, it might be tempting to think about it

523
00:28:35,800 --> 00:28:38,640
Speaker 1: in the reverse and think, well, this is here to

524
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: sort of stand in for imagination, but no, it can

525
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 1: often enhance it. And you know, man, you can go

526
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: wild with just that concept alone thinking about you know,

527
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: examples of you know, various physical representations of deities and

528
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 1: fantastic beings and creatures, and you know, in many cases

529
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:59,520
Speaker 1: beings and entities thought to have some level of reality

530
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: to you know, adult human practitioners of various religions and

531
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: so forth throughout time, and even down to various knick

532
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 1: knacks and toys that grown folks may have on their

533
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:13,160
Speaker 1: deaths at home or in the office. You know, an

534
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:17,240
Speaker 1: avatar of Godzilla, you know that maybe enhances the reality

535
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: of Godzilla.

536
00:29:18,280 --> 00:29:20,960
Speaker 2: There's a concept Weisberg mentions in this paper that we

537
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 2: may want to come back to when we do the

538
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:25,880
Speaker 2: full thing on imaginary companions. But it is the idea

539
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 2: of paracosms, meaning quote, imaginary worlds occupied by many pretend

540
00:29:33,040 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 2: entities and subject to their own internal rules. So I

541
00:29:37,760 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 2: think that's sort of like extending the concept of an

542
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:44,040
Speaker 2: imaginary companion to more like a whole world of potential

543
00:29:44,080 --> 00:29:46,960
Speaker 2: imaginary companions. That you know, it's like a different world

544
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 2: that has its own rules and its own inhabitants, and

545
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 2: I have imaginary access to it.

546
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:56,400
Speaker 1: Wow, the unseen world. Yeah, I mean, it is almost

547
00:29:56,520 --> 00:30:00,440
Speaker 1: times startling to think about how closely all of this

548
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:03,000
Speaker 1: mirrors the more sort of we often think, you know,

549
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: complex systems of the real and the imagined, the real

550
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: and the mythic and so forth that adults have. Like

551
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, it's already there, or at least

552
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:17,720
Speaker 1: it's already well coming together at a very early age.

553
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:21,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And actually that brings us to the next

554
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 2: thing from this paper I wanted to talk about, which

555
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 2: is the distinction between pretend and reality. So, for most children,

556
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 2: the peak density of pretend play is observed between the

557
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:35,320
Speaker 2: ages of three and five, though, as we've seen it

558
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 2: starts earlier than that, and it really extends all throughout

559
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 2: life in more limited ways. But between three and five

560
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 2: is when most kids are doing the most pretending. There's

561
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 2: a lot going on, and so when that's happening, adults

562
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 2: around these children often find themselves wondering can kids tell

563
00:30:54,040 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 2: the difference between fantasy and reality? It's a kind of

564
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 2: natural thing for parents to start. I don't know, I

565
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 2: don't know if most parents actually worry about it, but

566
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:05,520
Speaker 2: to at least kind of wonder, like, do they understand

567
00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 2: this isn't real? And though I think there are very

568
00:31:08,760 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 2: natural reasons that adults wonder or even worry about this,

569
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 2: Weisberg says that the research shows yes, generally, even quite

570
00:31:18,200 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 2: young children have no trouble distinguishing between pretend facts and

571
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 2: real facts, and by a round age four, most children

572
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:30,239
Speaker 2: can explain that what happens in the pretend play is

573
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 2: not quote real. It seems that children do make more

574
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 2: pretense reality confusion errors than adults, but they're still usually

575
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:40,720
Speaker 2: aware of the difference.

576
00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean can It's understandable that as parents we

577
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: can be overprotective, overly protective, and we may we'll at

578
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 1: least sometimes question it, and we'll think, well, did they

579
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: really know what's real and what's not? What's to deal

580
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 1: with this imaginary friend? Who is this imaginary friend? And

581
00:31:57,720 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: then added on top of that, as I'll get into

582
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:03,640
Speaker 1: more next episode, is the Certainly, for a while, their

583
00:32:04,480 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 1: imaginary friends were not seen as being a positive aspect

584
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 1: of childhood development. They were seen as as as as

585
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 1: a red flag. And uh, and I think there's still

586
00:32:15,760 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 1: a legacy of that sort of in the popular mindset,

587
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: you know, even though we've moved on from that view

588
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: of things.

589
00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:25,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, the stuff I was reading did not suggest imaginary

590
00:32:25,360 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 2: companions were anything to worry about, and that they're extremely

591
00:32:28,360 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 2: common somewhere. But depending on how you define it, somewhere

592
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 2: between like a third to two thirds of kids under

593
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 2: seven have them.

594
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,720
Speaker 1: Though it still can be weird when you hear about it.

595
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 1: You know, you're like, oh, you have an imaginary friend,

596
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: and you're speaking about them as if they're real, and

597
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:44,600
Speaker 1: you know, and part of that is we've you know

598
00:32:44,640 --> 00:32:46,320
Speaker 1: a lot of us have seen too many horror movies,

599
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:48,840
Speaker 1: so that's where mind goes, you know. But no, it's

600
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 1: there's there's absolutely nothing wrong with it according to the

601
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 1: current research.

602
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also studies of pretend to play have found

603
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 2: that in general, children are quite good at what the

604
00:32:58,320 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 2: author of this paper calls core unteening, which means that

605
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 2: like causal or mechanical understandings from a pretend to game

606
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 2: do not affect understandings in reality. So an example given

607
00:33:12,160 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 2: in the paper is like a child will use a

608
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 2: banana as a pretend telephone, and they can be really

609
00:33:17,920 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 2: into this banana phone game, but it does not lead

610
00:33:21,280 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 2: the child to believe that bananas can actually place calls

611
00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 2: or that real phones can be eaten. So they're able

612
00:33:27,040 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 2: to quarantine the implications of the pretend game and not

613
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 2: let that affect their understanding of how the world works.

614
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 1: So that's one less thing you parents have to freak

615
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:40,920
Speaker 1: out about, is that pretend phone play will lead to

616
00:33:41,040 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: the eating of phones and the the frenzied attempt to

617
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:46,880
Speaker 1: make calls on bananas.

618
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 2: Now I was wondering, though. I mean, of course, there

619
00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 2: might be individual cases where there is something you know

620
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:56,480
Speaker 2: that's worth following up about, but in most cases it's

621
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 2: not much to worry about. When kids are playing pretend,

622
00:33:59,080 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 2: they actually can basically tell the difference. So why do

623
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 2: adults worry about this. I think one reason might just

624
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 2: be like the commitment with which children engage and pretend

625
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 2: to play. It's a level of unself conscious gameness for

626
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:18,360
Speaker 2: enjoyment in a scenario that is difficult for adults to understand,

627
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 2: even if they're adults who are still pretty well practiced

628
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:24,360
Speaker 2: and pretend play. Maybe you're an adult who does theater

629
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 2: and does D and D and stuff, so you pretend

630
00:34:26,719 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 2: a lot more than most adults do. Still, you probably

631
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:33,920
Speaker 2: cannot really get in the level of gameness for pretend

632
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 2: that a child has.

633
00:34:35,520 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 1: Well, they just do it so earnestly and unashamedly, and

634
00:34:41,280 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: at the same time as adults. I feel like we

635
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:49,359
Speaker 1: often compartmentalize our imagine worlds and our dreaming. Either it

636
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 1: is tied up with particular you know, acts and activities

637
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:58,360
Speaker 1: social or otherwise you know, creative endeavors, or we just

638
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: kind of, like, I don't know, we can be very

639
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 1: hypocritical when we think about it. You know, like we

640
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:06,520
Speaker 1: may be spending you know, a large portion of our

641
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 1: days reverting into some sort of a fantasy world, be

642
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: it something we've dreamt up or something that has been

643
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:15,319
Speaker 1: dreamt up by authors and artists and so forth. But yeah,

644
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 1: it's a different scenario than to see it in the child.

645
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: And then on top of that, I think there is

646
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:23,759
Speaker 1: this or at least I'm speaking mostly for my own

647
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:26,600
Speaker 1: part here, but you know, as a parent, you look

648
00:35:26,640 --> 00:35:31,000
Speaker 1: to your child, and especially during those early days, you

649
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:35,840
Speaker 1: really want to hold on to and appreciate these like

650
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:39,360
Speaker 1: this pure imagination and all of these, you know, various

651
00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 1: aspects of childhood. But at the same time, like you

652
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 1: do want them to develop and grow, and you realize

653
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:48,680
Speaker 1: they will grow out of this and they will become

654
00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: ever become small adults, eventually entering into an adult world.

655
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:57,920
Speaker 1: So we're kind of like torn, you know, like we

656
00:35:57,960 --> 00:35:59,840
Speaker 1: want them to change, but we the last thing we

657
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 1: want is for them to change, yea. And it results

658
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 1: probably in all sorts of again counterintuitive ideas and expectations.

659
00:36:08,320 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: And yeah, and we can also be hypocritical in the

660
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 1: way we judge things like the pursuit of fantasy.

661
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that tension is like one of the

662
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:20,879
Speaker 2: most classically I guess understood bittersweet things about being a parent. Yeah, yeah,

663
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:23,240
Speaker 2: it's yeah, you want them to grow up, but you don't.

664
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 1: And then at the same time, yeah, you can't help

665
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 1: but be a bit anxious and worrying and like, well,

666
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:31,000
Speaker 1: will they ever know the difference between a banana and

667
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:32,719
Speaker 1: a phone? Is this permanent or is this just a

668
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:33,919
Speaker 1: kid thing now.

669
00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:36,279
Speaker 2: On the other hand, to be fair, it is still

670
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 2: found that children make more pretense reality distinction errors than

671
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 2: adults do, and parents and other adult caregivers do see

672
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 2: some instances where children really can't seem to tell the

673
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:53,200
Speaker 2: difference between imagination and reality, or where like something from

674
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:58,640
Speaker 2: the imagination infects their reality. An example given in the

675
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 2: paper is like when an originally fun pretend monster game

676
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:06,879
Speaker 2: becomes scary to the child. So, you know, like you're

677
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 2: running around playing monster Chase where mom is a monster

678
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 2: and she's roaring and chasing the child around, and this

679
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:14,799
Speaker 2: is not a scary game to the child. The child

680
00:37:14,800 --> 00:37:18,840
Speaker 2: thinks this is like very funny and very fun running around, laughing, squealing.

681
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 2: But then maybe one time after this game, seemingly out

682
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 2: of nowhere, the child becomes upset and says she's scared.

683
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:28,120
Speaker 2: She says, now she thinks there's a monster in her

684
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:29,759
Speaker 2: closet and she's scared to go to bed.

685
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:34,279
Speaker 1: I mean, I still do this to myself occasionally. I'm like, oh,

686
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:36,479
Speaker 1: that horror movie was fun till it wasn't.

687
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 2: Yes, right, and it's not just fear. Also, you know,

688
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 2: you can have like, oh, my toy kitty cat fell

689
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 2: off the couch and she got hurt and now I'm

690
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:49,600
Speaker 2: actually sad. I'm like crying. So you know what's going

691
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 2: on here? Well here, Weisberg doesn't fully know the answer,

692
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:55,960
Speaker 2: but refers to a couple of other short papers addressing

693
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 2: this issue of like, what's happening when it seems like

694
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 2: kids when the imagination infects the understanding of reality. And

695
00:38:04,800 --> 00:38:07,400
Speaker 2: one of the papers was by an author named Ted Ruffman,

696
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,320
Speaker 2: published in the journal Developmental Science in two thousand and two,

697
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 2: called Pretense Reality Confusions in Children and Adults. I went

698
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 2: and looked this up, and I'll try to quickly summarize

699
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 2: what Ruffman thinks, but it's addressing issues like when the

700
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:26,879
Speaker 2: pretend monster has suddenly become scary, and Ruffman says much

701
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:29,040
Speaker 2: along the lines you were saying, Rob, it's helpful to

702
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:31,879
Speaker 2: look at adult analogies to better understand what's going on.

703
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:36,320
Speaker 2: And one of the principles he brings up is availability

704
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:41,440
Speaker 2: or salience. You know, adults also get scared after watching

705
00:38:41,440 --> 00:38:44,799
Speaker 2: a horror movie for fun, despite fully understanding that the

706
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 2: movie is not real and cannot hurt them. So you

707
00:38:48,320 --> 00:38:51,759
Speaker 2: just finished watching New Nos Faratu or something, and you

708
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:55,040
Speaker 2: don't want to go downstairs by yourself. Is it because

709
00:38:55,080 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 2: you can't tell the difference between fiction and reality. Probably not.

710
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 2: Ruffman argues that in instead, the fear caused by a

711
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 2: fictional horror movie is probably due to a combination of

712
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 2: number one emotion will come to that in a second,

713
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:11,720
Speaker 2: but also availability or salience, and in psychology these terms

714
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:17,120
Speaker 2: mean essentially increased awareness of something. So you know a

715
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 2: horror movie even though you don't think the events of

716
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:22,839
Speaker 2: it are real, it just sort of puts front of

717
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 2: mind for you the idea of deadly threats and threatening

718
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 2: other worldly encounters, whether or not you think they're actually

719
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:33,880
Speaker 2: likely to happen to you. Now, it's just high in

720
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,840
Speaker 2: your awareness, and so that puts you on edge for

721
00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 2: threats of whatever type. The other thing is emotion. It's

722
00:39:41,520 --> 00:39:44,760
Speaker 2: possible that what gets carried over from say, watching a movie,

723
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 2: is a free floating emotion without a reference in the

724
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 2: real world. So again you know that the events of

725
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,760
Speaker 2: the sad movie or the scary movie are not literally true,

726
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 2: but they give you an emotion that lingers, and then

727
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 2: that emotion, without a reference in your life, can just

728
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 2: kind of get attached to whatever. This may happen even

729
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:07,960
Speaker 2: easier for children, because children may feel emotions even more intensely,

730
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 2: and the act of pretending itself tends to result in

731
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:13,840
Speaker 2: heightened emotions for children.

732
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: I don't want to complicate things too much by bringing

733
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:18,719
Speaker 1: up dreams, but I feel like this is maybe more

734
00:40:18,760 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: pronounced for grown ups. In that situation where you wake

735
00:40:23,160 --> 00:40:25,719
Speaker 1: up from a disturbing dream and you still feel disturbed,

736
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:28,800
Speaker 1: you know you can't help but carry that over into

737
00:40:28,880 --> 00:40:30,960
Speaker 1: at least the first portion of your morning, even though

738
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:33,520
Speaker 1: you know that was a dream, and maybe even analysis

739
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 1: of the facts of the dream are just ridiculous, but

740
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:41,520
Speaker 1: the feeling remains. And I think I have encountered that

741
00:40:41,640 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 1: with films before as well, if they are particularly either

742
00:40:45,160 --> 00:40:49,040
Speaker 1: I'm particularly sensitive, or the vibe is particularly strong in

743
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:52,080
Speaker 1: a given film, or some combination of the two. So yeah,

744
00:40:52,200 --> 00:40:56,280
Speaker 1: taking those two into account, I think helps me better

745
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:58,879
Speaker 1: understand where a child may be coming from when they

746
00:40:58,920 --> 00:40:59,800
Speaker 1: have this situation.

747
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:03,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, But then there's a third thing Ruffman brings up

748
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 2: that I think is the So we have those similarities

749
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 2: with kids on those first two things, the emotion and

750
00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:11,759
Speaker 2: the UH and the availability or salience, But then there's

751
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:16,840
Speaker 2: a big difference, which is our background knowledge. Roufman points

752
00:41:16,840 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 2: out that, simply put, kids know less than adults about

753
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:22,319
Speaker 2: how the world works and what is in it, So

754
00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:26,840
Speaker 2: it is actually less unreasonable than it seems too adults

755
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 2: for children to entertain implausible scenarios like there's a monster

756
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:34,560
Speaker 2: in my closet. By the time you're forty, you should

757
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:37,240
Speaker 2: be aware that this is actually not something that happens

758
00:41:37,239 --> 00:41:41,000
Speaker 2: in reality. They're not monsters in closets. But when you're three,

759
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:44,360
Speaker 2: it's reasonable to consider this is a still live option,

760
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:48,160
Speaker 2: like you don't have enough experience to reasonably rule that out.

761
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:53,759
Speaker 1: By the time you're forty, though, like late thirties, still understandable.

762
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 2: So this still does not necessarily mean that children have

763
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:02,400
Speaker 2: confused what happens in a pretend game with what happens

764
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 2: in reality. So you know, a child might worry that

765
00:42:05,400 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 2: there's an unseen monster in the closet, but would probably

766
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:11,880
Speaker 2: not worry that like you know, mommy playing the monster

767
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:15,160
Speaker 2: chase game. That means mom literally turned into a monster

768
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 2: when she was chasing the kid around and roaring. You know,

769
00:42:17,840 --> 00:42:20,480
Speaker 2: there can just be kind of a vague infection of

770
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:23,840
Speaker 2: ideas from one to the other, even if you don't

771
00:42:23,880 --> 00:42:28,919
Speaker 2: confuse the pretend scenario for a literal reality. Yeah.

772
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also worth caveating here though, that you know,

773
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 1: even as adults, we can still even though we know

774
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 1: think we know how the world works, it doesn't mean

775
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 1: we really know how the world works at all levels.

776
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 1: And we're also prone to latching onto best case scenarios

777
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:50,120
Speaker 1: and worst case scenarios as if those are the most

778
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 1: most likely outcomes. So yeah, there's there's a lot of

779
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 1: room for error in all of this. But yeah, I

780
00:42:56,760 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 1: understand the basic idea here. Yeah, the kids just know

781
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:04,319
Speaker 1: less about the world, and they're able to they're more

782
00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 1: susceptible to the contagion of those ideas.

783
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:18,000
Speaker 2: All right, From here, I want to skip over a

784
00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 2: few things in the paper and move on to talking

785
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:23,520
Speaker 2: about a couple of the mental capacities that the author

786
00:43:23,560 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 2: of this paper mentioned as possibly being related to pretend

787
00:43:28,480 --> 00:43:31,719
Speaker 2: play in childhood, and the three that the author explores

788
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 2: are symbolic understanding, theory of mind, and counterfactual reasoning. As

789
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 2: I said, we might save theory of mind more for

790
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 2: part two, But applying to all three of these concepts,

791
00:43:42,600 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 2: pretend play appears to have links to the development of

792
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:49,240
Speaker 2: these abilities, but there are a lot of questions about

793
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 2: how strong these links are and how they work, Like

794
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:55,640
Speaker 2: should it be understood that pretend to play is causally

795
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:59,480
Speaker 2: necessary for learning any of them? Or is it merely

796
00:43:59,680 --> 00:44:04,520
Speaker 2: fact facilitative, meaning making it easier or faster to learn them?

797
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:07,120
Speaker 2: Or could they be working in the opposite direction, like

798
00:44:07,200 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 2: the nascent beginnings of these capacities are what makes pretend

799
00:44:13,040 --> 00:44:17,760
Speaker 2: play possible, or could pretend play be what is called epiphenomenal,

800
00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 2: meaning an unnecessary byproduct of these developing capacities, Like it

801
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,760
Speaker 2: doesn't do anything itself, it just emerges because the brain

802
00:44:25,840 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 2: can do these things. Weisberg notes that this really is

803
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 2: difficult to study scientifically. It's hard to get really conclusive

804
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 2: answers on a lot of these questions, especially because it

805
00:44:37,080 --> 00:44:41,319
Speaker 2: is hard to build robust and ethical experiments on this,

806
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:44,239
Speaker 2: Like you can't really have control groups in which you

807
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:48,000
Speaker 2: force children to grow up without engaging and pretend play.

808
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 2: That's not really ethical. So a lot of the ways

809
00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 2: we would have of studying. These questions are like indirect

810
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:55,959
Speaker 2: ways of looking at it and leave us with maybe

811
00:44:56,000 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 2: helpful but still incomplete evidence. So the first thing to

812
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:04,000
Speaker 2: look at here is symbolic understanding. Pretend play is really

813
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 2: interesting because it is symbolic in nature. And to come

814
00:45:09,120 --> 00:45:11,719
Speaker 2: back to one example that shows this pretty easily. The

815
00:45:12,040 --> 00:45:14,920
Speaker 2: usually the first acquired form of pretend to play in

816
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 2: child development object substitution. So the stick is a sword,

817
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:23,360
Speaker 2: the remote control is a phone. This wash cloth is

818
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:27,439
Speaker 2: a warm blanket for the baby dinosaur. Things stand in

819
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:30,840
Speaker 2: for other things that they in a literal sense, are not,

820
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 2: though they might be closer or further in you know,

821
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:38,799
Speaker 2: physical form to the thing they're supposed to represent. You know,

822
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:41,319
Speaker 2: pretending a baby doll is a baby is still a

823
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:44,600
Speaker 2: form of pretending, because even though a baby doll is

824
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:46,719
Speaker 2: made to be is to look like a baby, it

825
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:48,960
Speaker 2: resembles a baby, it is not literally a baby. So

826
00:45:49,040 --> 00:45:50,800
Speaker 2: like it, you know, when you feed it, it doesn't

827
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:52,320
Speaker 2: actually eat, and so forth.

828
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:56,880
Speaker 1: But pretending a remote control is a phone, like that's

829
00:45:57,120 --> 00:46:03,319
Speaker 1: that's rather straightforward, and actually, I mean when you're super young, like,

830
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:06,080
Speaker 1: what's the difference between all of these various gadgets that

831
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:08,399
Speaker 1: your parents have in their house, right, I mean, it's

832
00:46:08,440 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 1: all just slightly different versions of the same thing.

833
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, yeah, Despite the general lack of understanding about,

834
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:18,600
Speaker 2: you know, the intricacies of how a lot of devices

835
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 2: work in real life. In pretend to play, I mean,

836
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 2: a child can really learn to consistently, across time manipulate

837
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:29,960
Speaker 2: a symbolic object as if it were the thing it represented,

838
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:34,040
Speaker 2: having the properties, functions, and effects of the pretend object.

839
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 2: So like, you know, the child might not really understand

840
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:39,720
Speaker 2: fully how a phone works, but they can keep treating

841
00:46:39,719 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 2: the remote as a phone in place calls with it.

842
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 2: They might even try to FaceTime, you know, the like

843
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 2: they'll they will go through activities that they've seen adults

844
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:53,319
Speaker 2: do with the phone. So what Weisberg notes that some

845
00:46:53,560 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 2: child development scholars dispute the extent to which pretend to

846
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 2: play should be seen as actually symbolic. Now, there are

847
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:05,320
Speaker 2: a couple of different frameworks here, different ways of thinking

848
00:47:05,320 --> 00:47:09,719
Speaker 2: about what pretending is in something like object substitution. Is

849
00:47:09,719 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 2: it simply a behavior or is it actually a mentalistic

850
00:47:14,719 --> 00:47:19,240
Speaker 2: process of representation in the brain. Is it a mental state? Now?

851
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 2: Weisberg explains the behavior view like this quote. When pretending

852
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:27,160
Speaker 2: that a banana is a phone, one behaves as if

853
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 2: the banana was a phone and performs the actions with

854
00:47:30,280 --> 00:47:33,120
Speaker 2: the banana that would be appropriate if the banana was

855
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 2: a phone. No mentalizing is necessary for the game to proceed,

856
00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:41,359
Speaker 2: as the pretense is connected primarily to behaviors and not

857
00:47:41,560 --> 00:47:45,959
Speaker 2: necessarily to mental states or intentions. So in this view,

858
00:47:46,440 --> 00:47:49,759
Speaker 2: the child does not actually need to have separate concepts

859
00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 2: of banana and phone and mentally apply the attributes of

860
00:47:53,719 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 2: the phone to the banana, understanding that they are in

861
00:47:56,719 --> 00:48:00,400
Speaker 2: fact different. Instead, they're just treating the banana as if

862
00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:03,600
Speaker 2: it were actually a phone. What is the support for

863
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 2: this view, Well, Weisberg cites research where if you take

864
00:48:08,200 --> 00:48:10,480
Speaker 2: four year olds and five year olds. Take these children

865
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:14,799
Speaker 2: and you show them a character hopping like a kangaroo,

866
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 2: and then you tell the kids that the character who

867
00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 2: hops like a kangaroo does not know what a kangaroo is,

868
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:27,040
Speaker 2: and then you ask them is the hopping character pretending

869
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:30,359
Speaker 2: to be a kangaroo? The majority of four and five

870
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:32,880
Speaker 2: year olds will say yes. In their view, the hopping

871
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:36,440
Speaker 2: character is pretending to be a kangaroo, even if the

872
00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 2: character has never heard of a kangaroo and doesn't know

873
00:48:39,280 --> 00:48:42,360
Speaker 2: what it is. Now. Actually, I think that's a really

874
00:48:42,400 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 2: interesting finding that might seem kind of subtle, and I

875
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:47,840
Speaker 2: don't know whether it proves the pure behavior view of

876
00:48:47,880 --> 00:48:49,960
Speaker 2: pretend play, but I think this is just kind of

877
00:48:49,960 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 2: an interesting result. Nonetheless, I don't think adults would make

878
00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:56,880
Speaker 2: the same judgment. I think if you asked adults, we

879
00:48:56,920 --> 00:48:59,279
Speaker 2: would probably mostly say that you need to know what

880
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:02,439
Speaker 2: something is in order to pretend to be that thing.

881
00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:04,439
Speaker 2: But for a lot of four and five year olds,

882
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 2: know you only need to act like a thing to

883
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:07,880
Speaker 2: pretend to be it.

884
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:11,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, for adults, I feel like the revelation that the

885
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:15,920
Speaker 1: individual acting like a kangaroo doesn't know what a kangaroo is, like,

886
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:19,799
Speaker 1: that's potentially horrifying. Yeah, right, that makes things a lot

887
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:23,000
Speaker 1: more concerning. Yeah, but they're just like, well, yeah, they're

888
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 1: pretending to be a kangaroo. Of course, they're pretending to

889
00:49:26,000 --> 00:49:27,400
Speaker 1: be a kangaro. It doesn't matter if they don't know

890
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 1: what one is. They are pretending to be a kangaroo.

891
00:49:30,400 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 2: But Weisberg argues that subsequent research on this question has

892
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 2: made the initial result maybe a little more complicated, and

893
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:40,920
Speaker 2: it's possible that this doesn't really tell us what's happening

894
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:45,800
Speaker 2: when children pretend, but is instead addressing a second order

895
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:52,160
Speaker 2: related question of how children conceptualize what pretending is, which

896
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:55,080
Speaker 2: is an interesting question but a different one because like

897
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:58,520
Speaker 2: a child may not actually be able to fully explain

898
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:02,000
Speaker 2: their own mental states in pretending. They might be doing

899
00:50:02,040 --> 00:50:04,479
Speaker 2: one thing when pretending, but when you ask a child

900
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:07,440
Speaker 2: what pretending is, they'll tell you something kind of different.

901
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:10,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's such an adult impulse too, to like, okay

902
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:12,919
Speaker 1: that then you were doing. Now I'm going to ruin

903
00:50:12,960 --> 00:50:16,040
Speaker 1: it by asking you to explain it, you know, like

904
00:50:16,080 --> 00:50:18,799
Speaker 1: they're just doing it. They're just engaging in the pretend play.

905
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,320
Speaker 2: Now. The other view, the mental symbolism view. This is

906
00:50:22,360 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 2: the view that says children are indeed engaging in mental

907
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:29,239
Speaker 2: symbolism when they play pretend, and in this case, the

908
00:50:29,280 --> 00:50:33,960
Speaker 2: game quote crucially requires understanding something about the mental states

909
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:37,759
Speaker 2: involved so that one is aware what is intended in

910
00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 2: the game. So under this view, it would be important

911
00:50:40,960 --> 00:50:44,000
Speaker 2: to understand that you are intending to pretend to be

912
00:50:44,000 --> 00:50:46,440
Speaker 2: a kangaroo in order to pretend to be a kangaroo.

913
00:50:47,000 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 2: So in this view, like if a kid is playing

914
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:52,719
Speaker 2: the banana phone game, it is necessary that they understand

915
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:55,440
Speaker 2: and that all play partners understand that the banana is

916
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:59,959
Speaker 2: supposed to represent a phone now. As evidence supporting this view,

917
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:05,759
Speaker 2: Weisberg sites some other interesting experimental findings. One is experiments

918
00:51:05,800 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 2: showing that kids in this preschool age can readily navigate

919
00:51:10,520 --> 00:51:13,880
Speaker 2: a bunch of different pretend to play episodes with different partners,

920
00:51:14,400 --> 00:51:19,040
Speaker 2: which depends on keeping track of what each different play

921
00:51:19,040 --> 00:51:24,000
Speaker 2: partner knows about what the play props represent. So maybe

922
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:27,320
Speaker 2: Dad knows, but Mom does not know that this pile

923
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 2: of crayons is actually spaghetti and my dinosaurs are eating it.

924
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:35,920
Speaker 2: Mom would need to be informed that the crayons are spaghetti. Now,

925
00:51:35,960 --> 00:51:38,360
Speaker 2: how can you tell that children have this ability to

926
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 2: navigate the different understandings like this? Children often get upset

927
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:47,840
Speaker 2: or protest when a play partner starts using a prop

928
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:52,399
Speaker 2: literally instead of in its symbolic identity. So like, if

929
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:55,440
Speaker 2: we're playing the crayons or spaghetti game and then I

930
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:58,480
Speaker 2: go pick up a spaghetti crayon and start drawing with it,

931
00:51:59,160 --> 00:52:01,880
Speaker 2: the child is very likely to be like, no, that

932
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:05,239
Speaker 2: is spaghetti, not a crayon. If you encountered this.

933
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:09,360
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, definitely in these more abstract forms, but

934
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:14,360
Speaker 1: also in the case of stuffed animals or stuffies, like

935
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 1: what is the difference between a stuffed animal and a pillow?

936
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 1: Try and use a beloved stuffed animal as a pillow,

937
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:22,200
Speaker 1: and the child will let you know.

938
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,440
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, classic, that's a great one. But so generally,

939
00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:31,239
Speaker 2: the children in this kind of example only protest like

940
00:52:31,280 --> 00:52:34,680
Speaker 2: this if the play partner should be expected to know

941
00:52:34,960 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 2: about the substitution, So like if the person they're playing

942
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 2: with was present when the pretense began, So that's kind

943
00:52:42,160 --> 00:52:44,880
Speaker 2: of interesting. You know, the child will have more patience

944
00:52:45,200 --> 00:52:48,120
Speaker 2: for somebody who just entered the picture and doesn't understand

945
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:52,120
Speaker 2: that the crayons are spaghetti. More evidence that pretend to

946
00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 2: play is mentally symbolic and not just behavioral. Some actions

947
00:52:56,520 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 2: observed and pretend to play only make sense if there

948
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:03,879
Speaker 2: is a symbolic representation, and do not make sense if

949
00:53:03,920 --> 00:53:07,960
Speaker 2: the child were simply behaving as if the object really

950
00:53:08,239 --> 00:53:13,440
Speaker 2: was the substitution object. Here's an example. You've got a

951
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:16,439
Speaker 2: little Lego block and you decide it's a car, and

952
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:19,640
Speaker 2: you are pushing the Lego block around and saying vroom

953
00:53:19,719 --> 00:53:23,200
Speaker 2: vroom and making horn honking sounds. Children do stuff like

954
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:26,640
Speaker 2: this all the time. Is that what a child does

955
00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:30,400
Speaker 2: in relation to a real car push it around and

956
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:31,320
Speaker 2: say vroom vroom.

957
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:31,880
Speaker 1: No.

958
00:53:32,160 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 2: In a real car, the child like gets inside and

959
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 2: rides and maybe looks out the window. There is no

960
00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:42,239
Speaker 2: behavior to enact in relation to a real car that

961
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:45,440
Speaker 2: is similar to pushing a tiny object around on the

962
00:53:45,440 --> 00:53:48,319
Speaker 2: ground and making vrooming sounds and horn honking sounds with

963
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:51,680
Speaker 2: your mouth. This really only makes sense if the child

964
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:55,800
Speaker 2: understands that the block is not a car but represents

965
00:53:55,840 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 2: a car. So in the end, Weisberg argues that the

966
00:54:00,320 --> 00:54:04,520
Speaker 2: symbolic view of pretense is better supported by the evidence. Now,

967
00:54:04,600 --> 00:54:07,800
Speaker 2: what does this mean for the broader idea of symbolic

968
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:11,480
Speaker 2: understanding and child development. Again, it's hard to prove this

969
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:14,440
Speaker 2: kind of thing conclusively, but a lot of researchers have

970
00:54:14,520 --> 00:54:19,760
Speaker 2: suggested that there's a link between pretend play and symbolic thinking,

971
00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:23,279
Speaker 2: and it means that pretend play could be important for

972
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:27,080
Speaker 2: the development of the most significant form of symbolic thinking

973
00:54:27,120 --> 00:54:31,640
Speaker 2: in human culture, which is language. Language is inherently symbolic

974
00:54:31,719 --> 00:54:34,800
Speaker 2: because a word is not the thing itself, It only

975
00:54:34,920 --> 00:54:39,480
Speaker 2: represents the thing, so it may be that pretend play

976
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:44,239
Speaker 2: gives children a chance to practice symbolic thinking, which in

977
00:54:44,280 --> 00:54:49,120
Speaker 2: turn helps accelerate their acquisition of language in early childhood.

978
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 2: Some researchers apparently think this, but again it's hard to

979
00:54:52,160 --> 00:54:55,440
Speaker 2: disentangle the variables and see which direction if any of

980
00:54:55,440 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 2: the causal relationship goes. One thing is pretty clear is

981
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:03,880
Speaker 2: that pretending is not necessary for language acquisition, but it

982
00:55:03,920 --> 00:55:08,720
Speaker 2: may simply make it easier and faster. Weisberg briefly offers

983
00:55:08,800 --> 00:55:11,200
Speaker 2: another interesting idea. This is almost just an aside and

984
00:55:11,239 --> 00:55:14,080
Speaker 2: a sentence, but it really started working around in my brain.

985
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:19,760
Speaker 2: Wesberg writes, quote play may provide an especially facilitative environment

986
00:55:19,800 --> 00:55:25,320
Speaker 2: for children to experiment with new syntactic constructions. If I

987
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:29,960
Speaker 2: understand that right, I think this means that because pretending

988
00:55:30,120 --> 00:55:36,240
Speaker 2: during play allows you to generate infinitely variable scenarios without

989
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:38,880
Speaker 2: ever having to leave your home or your normal routines,

990
00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:45,000
Speaker 2: it encourages novel constructions of language based thought. So, in

991
00:55:45,040 --> 00:55:48,120
Speaker 2: other words, a child may literally do almost the same

992
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:51,760
Speaker 2: thing in the same place most days, but because playing

993
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:56,000
Speaker 2: pretend can create weird, novel situations with very little effort

994
00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:59,360
Speaker 2: or risk, you will be required to think and speak

995
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:02,560
Speaker 2: new sentences, which is important as you get better at

996
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:05,920
Speaker 2: speaking and practice your language skills, you know, under what

997
00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:08,200
Speaker 2: other I was just thinking about, like what my daughter's

998
00:56:08,239 --> 00:56:11,359
Speaker 2: doing in the past few days. She's like, she is

999
00:56:11,520 --> 00:56:14,680
Speaker 2: making new weird sentences all the time, Like you know,

1000
00:56:14,760 --> 00:56:18,560
Speaker 2: little gholies, get on boat and go on water and

1001
00:56:18,640 --> 00:56:20,800
Speaker 2: see red buoye and go to Nana's house.

1002
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:23,959
Speaker 1: Little goolies, where did she pick up? Has she seen

1003
00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:24,400
Speaker 1: the movie?

1004
00:56:24,480 --> 00:56:27,640
Speaker 2: No, she's got she's got some little some little weird,

1005
00:56:27,719 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 2: little weird guys who are ugulies.

1006
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, that makes sense, but yeah, I mean this

1007
00:56:32,520 --> 00:56:34,560
Speaker 1: is again this touches on one of the great things

1008
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:38,080
Speaker 1: about being around children is that they are just such

1009
00:56:38,080 --> 00:56:42,960
Speaker 1: a font of wild creativity that grown ups typically just

1010
00:56:43,000 --> 00:56:47,200
Speaker 1: don't have as ready access to. Like I'm sure this

1011
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:48,840
Speaker 1: is a story I've told on the show before, but

1012
00:56:48,880 --> 00:56:51,680
Speaker 1: this was before I became a parent. I went to

1013
00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:54,560
Speaker 1: an improv show. It was like a local improv group,

1014
00:56:54,840 --> 00:56:57,680
Speaker 1: and they were doing a kid's puppet show, but it

1015
00:56:57,719 --> 00:57:01,200
Speaker 1: was entirely improv and they would ask the children to

1016
00:57:01,200 --> 00:57:06,000
Speaker 1: give them ideas to then act out. And so even

1017
00:57:06,080 --> 00:57:09,400
Speaker 1: like seasoned improv group, like they were really you know,

1018
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:11,520
Speaker 1: they were really rolling with some of these ideas, Like

1019
00:57:11,520 --> 00:57:16,280
Speaker 1: I distinctly remember one little girl saying Batman the girl

1020
00:57:16,640 --> 00:57:20,480
Speaker 1: as being one of the concepts. Anyway, that's just one example. Obviously,

1021
00:57:20,520 --> 00:57:22,400
Speaker 1: anyone who's been around children for any length of time

1022
00:57:22,400 --> 00:57:23,520
Speaker 1: can think of a hundred more.

1023
00:57:23,880 --> 00:57:26,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, they get they get weird. Yeah, did I already mention?

1024
00:57:27,000 --> 00:57:30,560
Speaker 2: Mine is also right now obsessed with changing diapers on dinosaurs.

1025
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:34,520
Speaker 2: On dinosaurs, the dinosaurs have diapers, and they often have

1026
00:57:34,600 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 2: poop needs to be changed.

1027
00:57:36,120 --> 00:57:38,560
Speaker 1: Well, you know, that's that's just sensible.

1028
00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 2: Oh but quickly before we move off of the symbolic

1029
00:57:41,560 --> 00:57:45,320
Speaker 2: understanding thing, h Weisberg, the language is clearly the most

1030
00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:49,520
Speaker 2: important type of symbolic skills in human culture. Language is

1031
00:57:49,560 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 2: not the only symbolic skill practiced through pretend to play.

1032
00:57:52,680 --> 00:57:56,640
Speaker 2: Another one the author mentions is quote reasoning with maps

1033
00:57:56,680 --> 00:58:00,160
Speaker 2: and scale models. That's the type of symbolic representation. You

1034
00:58:00,160 --> 00:58:03,200
Speaker 2: can think of a play space on the floor as

1035
00:58:03,320 --> 00:58:06,960
Speaker 2: really being much like a map, a scale representation of

1036
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:10,440
Speaker 2: a topography or landscape in miniature on which you can

1037
00:58:10,440 --> 00:58:12,640
Speaker 2: sort of plot routes and act things out. And this

1038
00:58:12,680 --> 00:58:14,560
Speaker 2: is a big part of adult reasoning about how to

1039
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:15,480
Speaker 2: get around places.

1040
00:58:15,920 --> 00:58:19,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it makes sense since you consider

1041
00:58:19,320 --> 00:58:23,040
Speaker 1: that often a child's room contains multiple scale models, be

1042
00:58:23,160 --> 00:58:26,840
Speaker 1: they lego kits that have been assembled or you know,

1043
00:58:27,080 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 1: or stuffies that are of vehicles. I mean there are

1044
00:58:30,360 --> 00:58:33,560
Speaker 1: a million different variations of this obviously, but by having

1045
00:58:33,560 --> 00:58:36,120
Speaker 1: those objects in a space, it kind of turns that

1046
00:58:36,160 --> 00:58:38,960
Speaker 1: space into a kind of map or a miniaturized world.

1047
00:58:39,280 --> 00:58:51,919
Speaker 2: Totally. Okay, one more thing before we wrap up Part one.

1048
00:58:52,000 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 2: Here is Weisberg's exploration of the link between pretend play

1049
00:58:56,400 --> 00:59:02,160
Speaker 2: and counter factual reasoning. So, counterfact ctual reasoning is reasoning

1050
00:59:02,280 --> 00:59:05,560
Speaker 2: based on a premise that you do not accept as

1051
00:59:05,680 --> 00:59:10,600
Speaker 2: current reality. So here's one. If cheetos were blue instead

1052
00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 2: of orange, what color would your fingertips become after eating them?

1053
00:59:14,520 --> 00:59:17,080
Speaker 2: You know that cheetos are not actually blue, but you

1054
00:59:17,120 --> 00:59:23,320
Speaker 2: can easily answer this question because you can reason counterfactually. Right, blue? Right?

1055
00:59:26,200 --> 00:59:30,560
Speaker 2: Got it on the record, Yes, okay, So you know,

1056
00:59:30,720 --> 00:59:34,320
Speaker 2: as a comparison, imagine this banana war a phone. How

1057
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:39,360
Speaker 2: would you use it? It's easy to see playing pretend

1058
00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:43,560
Speaker 2: as really almost exactly the same thing as counterfactual reasoning.

1059
00:59:43,600 --> 00:59:46,920
Speaker 2: You start with a premise that is not literal. It

1060
00:59:47,000 --> 00:59:49,080
Speaker 2: is different than how you think the world actually is,

1061
00:59:49,600 --> 00:59:51,760
Speaker 2: and then you act it out. You follow from there.

1062
00:59:52,120 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 2: But interestingly, studies have found that children in the so

1063
00:59:56,120 --> 00:59:58,400
Speaker 2: called high season of pretend to play, you know, this

1064
00:59:58,480 --> 01:00:01,479
Speaker 2: period of like three to five years old, where they're

1065
01:00:01,520 --> 01:00:04,880
Speaker 2: playing pretend all the time. Kids in this age range

1066
01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:09,360
Speaker 2: show a lot of difficulty with counterfactual reasoning and experiments.

1067
01:00:10,320 --> 01:00:13,760
Speaker 2: Some examples cited by Weisberg here. One is like an

1068
01:00:13,800 --> 01:00:17,600
Speaker 2: experiment where a kid watches a toy mouse go down

1069
01:00:17,640 --> 01:00:20,880
Speaker 2: a little forked slide and then answers questions about it.

1070
01:00:21,840 --> 01:00:24,920
Speaker 2: So you can imagine, one condition is the child watches

1071
01:00:24,960 --> 01:00:27,360
Speaker 2: the mouse go down the fork in one direction, and

1072
01:00:27,400 --> 01:00:30,440
Speaker 2: then the experimenter asks, if the mouse goes down the

1073
01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:33,120
Speaker 2: opposite side of the fork next time, where will it

1074
01:00:33,240 --> 01:00:35,920
Speaker 2: end up. Kids do okay with this question. It's a

1075
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:39,720
Speaker 2: hypothetical question about a future event, and they've already seen

1076
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:44,000
Speaker 2: how the slide works in principle, so they do okay. However,

1077
01:00:44,120 --> 01:00:48,120
Speaker 2: they have a lot more difficulty with almost exactly the

1078
01:00:48,160 --> 01:00:53,080
Speaker 2: same question, but just if it's phrased as a counterfactual instead,

1079
01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:55,560
Speaker 2: So you show them the mouse going down one side

1080
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:57,560
Speaker 2: of the fork, and then you ask them if the

1081
01:00:57,560 --> 01:01:00,880
Speaker 2: mouse had gone down the other way of the fork instead,

1082
01:01:01,280 --> 01:01:04,520
Speaker 2: where would it have ended up. Apparently kids really struggle

1083
01:01:04,560 --> 01:01:07,960
Speaker 2: with this. Children at this age also really struggle with

1084
01:01:08,320 --> 01:01:12,960
Speaker 2: counterfactual syllogisms, like the like the blue Cheetos thing reasoning

1085
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:16,440
Speaker 2: based on a counterfactual premise, so you can say something like,

1086
01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:20,320
Speaker 2: imagine a world where cats bark instead of me owing.

1087
01:01:20,880 --> 01:01:24,000
Speaker 2: In this world, Fluffy is a cat. Does Fluffy bark

1088
01:01:24,200 --> 01:01:27,880
Speaker 2: or meow? Preschoolers struggle with this as well. They seem

1089
01:01:27,920 --> 01:01:32,360
Speaker 2: to have a hard time ignoring their legitimate knowledge about

1090
01:01:32,400 --> 01:01:35,520
Speaker 2: the real world, which is that cats meow, they do

1091
01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:38,120
Speaker 2: not bark, And so the kids want to say Fluffy

1092
01:01:38,160 --> 01:01:40,560
Speaker 2: meows because they know that cats meow.

1093
01:01:41,080 --> 01:01:43,400
Speaker 1: I mean, I can see the difficulty because this is

1094
01:01:43,480 --> 01:01:46,280
Speaker 1: kind of like a bedrock understanding of reality, you know,

1095
01:01:47,480 --> 01:01:51,919
Speaker 1: And if you snatch that away and flip it around, yeah,

1096
01:01:51,960 --> 01:01:54,560
Speaker 1: it takes a minute to recalibrate to that.

1097
01:01:55,080 --> 01:01:59,440
Speaker 2: So it's very interesting that counterfactual reasoning and playing pretend

1098
01:02:00,320 --> 01:02:03,000
Speaker 2: seem to us to be nearly the same thing. They're

1099
01:02:03,080 --> 01:02:06,120
Speaker 2: almost exactly the same thing. Yet preschoolers tend to excel

1100
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:09,800
Speaker 2: at one and struggle with the other. Genuine skill at

1101
01:02:09,840 --> 01:02:12,960
Speaker 2: counterfactual reasoning only seems to come online later with some

1102
01:02:13,120 --> 01:02:16,680
Speaker 2: effort and training. So one idea offered in this paper

1103
01:02:16,840 --> 01:02:22,120
Speaker 2: is the idea of implicit versus explicit understanding. So when

1104
01:02:22,400 --> 01:02:29,840
Speaker 2: pretending children engage an implicit or intuitive sense of counterfactual reasoning,

1105
01:02:29,880 --> 01:02:34,000
Speaker 2: that's acted out through play in the body. But maybe

1106
01:02:34,040 --> 01:02:40,920
Speaker 2: what they struggle with is understanding counterfactual reasoning purely in words,

1107
01:02:41,080 --> 01:02:44,960
Speaker 2: which is why they're having trouble with syllogisms. That's one possibility,

1108
01:02:45,000 --> 01:02:48,800
Speaker 2: it's the explicit versus implicit. But also interesting thing is

1109
01:02:48,840 --> 01:02:52,360
Speaker 2: that some experiments have shown that you can improve preschooler's

1110
01:02:52,440 --> 01:02:58,440
Speaker 2: performance on counterfactual syllogisms simply by explaining the counterfactual element

1111
01:02:58,680 --> 01:03:02,160
Speaker 2: as pretend play. So you can imagine asking, maybe a

1112
01:03:02,240 --> 01:03:04,720
Speaker 2: kid struggles with the you know the like you know,

1113
01:03:05,000 --> 01:03:09,480
Speaker 2: cats bark in this world? What is Fluffy the cat say? Instead,

1114
01:03:09,560 --> 01:03:12,720
Speaker 2: you could say, fluffy the cat is pretending to be

1115
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:15,560
Speaker 2: a dog. When he is pretending to be a dog,

1116
01:03:15,760 --> 01:03:20,160
Speaker 2: does he bark or meow? So maybe this kind of

1117
01:03:20,200 --> 01:03:23,040
Speaker 2: thing can can kind of get through more more on

1118
01:03:23,080 --> 01:03:28,200
Speaker 2: the implicit wavelength. But anyway, some Researchers have argued that

1119
01:03:28,280 --> 01:03:32,000
Speaker 2: the adaptive function of pretend to play is exactly this

1120
01:03:32,080 --> 01:03:37,040
Speaker 2: about counterfactual reasoning. It's to prepare children for serious counterfactual

1121
01:03:37,240 --> 01:03:39,920
Speaker 2: reasoning later in life. And I want to emphasize that

1122
01:03:39,960 --> 01:03:44,080
Speaker 2: counterfactual reasoning is not just like high flutint philosophical thought

1123
01:03:44,120 --> 01:03:47,400
Speaker 2: experiments or you know, it's not just on that level.

1124
01:03:47,520 --> 01:03:50,640
Speaker 2: I mean, we engage in counterfactual reasoning every single day.

1125
01:03:51,240 --> 01:03:54,680
Speaker 2: One function of counterfactual reasoning that is very useful is

1126
01:03:54,720 --> 01:03:58,840
Speaker 2: to learn not only from mistakes made, but from mistakes

1127
01:03:58,920 --> 01:04:02,720
Speaker 2: almost made, or from the mistakes of others. So you

1128
01:04:02,240 --> 01:04:05,560
Speaker 2: can think, you can like go through an experience and

1129
01:04:05,600 --> 01:04:08,680
Speaker 2: then think, wow, if I had done it this other way,

1130
01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:11,240
Speaker 2: that could have gone really bad, and you can learn

1131
01:04:11,280 --> 01:04:14,320
Speaker 2: from that even though you didn't actually have that experience.

1132
01:04:14,360 --> 01:04:16,920
Speaker 2: You just know enough to know that you shouldn't have

1133
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:19,000
Speaker 2: done that, and you won't do that in the future.

1134
01:04:19,520 --> 01:04:20,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great point.

1135
01:04:21,160 --> 01:04:23,200
Speaker 2: Like who knows, maybe you know, you take the boat

1136
01:04:23,280 --> 01:04:26,400
Speaker 2: ride across the river even though you were thinking about swimming,

1137
01:04:26,440 --> 01:04:30,080
Speaker 2: and halfway across you see some crocodiles and you remember, like, oh,

1138
01:04:30,120 --> 01:04:33,080
Speaker 2: I can reason if I had swam instead of riding

1139
01:04:33,080 --> 01:04:34,560
Speaker 2: the boat. That would have been bad.

1140
01:04:35,800 --> 01:04:37,640
Speaker 1: It reminds see there's a line in I Figure which

1141
01:04:37,680 --> 01:04:41,920
Speaker 1: Cormick McCarthy book, but there's a character pondering all the

1142
01:04:41,960 --> 01:04:44,800
Speaker 1: worse luck, their bad luck might have saved them from.

1143
01:04:45,040 --> 01:04:48,400
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah. Now Again, what's less clear is to

1144
01:04:48,440 --> 01:04:51,240
Speaker 2: what extent there is any kind of direct training effects.

1145
01:04:51,280 --> 01:04:53,919
Speaker 2: It seems plausible that pretend to play really does train

1146
01:04:54,080 --> 01:04:57,000
Speaker 2: the brain for counterfactual reasoning, But we don't know. But

1147
01:04:57,440 --> 01:05:01,360
Speaker 2: interesting thing to study and cert plausible based on what

1148
01:05:01,360 --> 01:05:03,680
Speaker 2: we do know. Now, I think we're starting to run

1149
01:05:03,680 --> 01:05:05,520
Speaker 2: a little long, so this might be the place that

1150
01:05:05,560 --> 01:05:08,240
Speaker 2: we have to cut part one here. But obviously there's

1151
01:05:08,240 --> 01:05:09,880
Speaker 2: going to be a lot more to say about Pretend

1152
01:05:09,920 --> 01:05:13,320
Speaker 2: to Play in subsequent episodes. At least one more, we

1153
01:05:13,400 --> 01:05:15,440
Speaker 2: can promise you. Yeah.

1154
01:05:15,560 --> 01:05:17,440
Speaker 1: Now, I do have a few follow up questions, so

1155
01:05:17,520 --> 01:05:20,280
Speaker 1: before we close out, First of all, where do you

1156
01:05:20,320 --> 01:05:23,160
Speaker 1: stand on air guitar? You being a person who actually

1157
01:05:23,200 --> 01:05:26,880
Speaker 1: plays a guitar, do you, as a grown up engage

1158
01:05:26,920 --> 01:05:28,800
Speaker 1: in air guitar? Do you find yourself playing the air

1159
01:05:28,800 --> 01:05:33,400
Speaker 1: guitar whilst listening to music for at least moments of

1160
01:05:33,520 --> 01:05:34,520
Speaker 1: not extended periods.

1161
01:05:34,760 --> 01:05:36,560
Speaker 2: I don't know what this says about me, but I

1162
01:05:36,600 --> 01:05:39,760
Speaker 2: really know do not play air guitar at all. This

1163
01:05:39,960 --> 01:05:43,160
Speaker 2: no judgment against it. I'm fully supportive of air guitar behaviors,

1164
01:05:43,160 --> 01:05:46,240
Speaker 2: but I don't find myself doing it when I listen

1165
01:05:46,320 --> 01:05:49,360
Speaker 2: to music. I just I dance, but air guitar is

1166
01:05:49,400 --> 01:05:50,520
Speaker 2: not part of the repertoire.

1167
01:05:51,080 --> 01:05:52,120
Speaker 1: How about air drums?

1168
01:05:53,080 --> 01:05:56,120
Speaker 2: Oh, I do more of that. Interesting. I don't actually

1169
01:05:56,120 --> 01:05:59,000
Speaker 2: play the drums, but I'm more likely to act out

1170
01:05:59,040 --> 01:06:00,880
Speaker 2: playing drums without real drums there.

1171
01:06:00,960 --> 01:06:04,120
Speaker 1: Yeah huh. Interesting, Like if in the air tonight place,

1172
01:06:04,160 --> 01:06:05,440
Speaker 1: you're definitely going to go do the.

1173
01:06:07,720 --> 01:06:11,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all the fills, the fills in a gottadavida,

1174
01:06:11,040 --> 01:06:13,800
Speaker 2: the drum solo. I cannot listen to that drum solo

1175
01:06:13,840 --> 01:06:15,160
Speaker 2: without acting it out.

1176
01:06:15,320 --> 01:06:17,600
Speaker 1: I will catch myself doing air guitar, but then I

1177
01:06:17,640 --> 01:06:19,640
Speaker 1: get very self conscious because I'm like, I don't know

1178
01:06:19,680 --> 01:06:21,400
Speaker 1: how to play the guitar. What am I doing? I'm

1179
01:06:21,440 --> 01:06:24,400
Speaker 1: just very roughly mimicking things that I've seen before. And

1180
01:06:24,400 --> 01:06:25,920
Speaker 1: then I put my hands in my pockets.

1181
01:06:26,000 --> 01:06:28,040
Speaker 2: Don't let it hold you back now.

1182
01:06:28,160 --> 01:06:31,640
Speaker 1: And then my other follow up question a pair of questions,

1183
01:06:31,680 --> 01:06:36,760
Speaker 1: really or observations involve again the banana as a telephone.

1184
01:06:36,760 --> 01:06:40,000
Speaker 1: First of all, are kids still doing this? Because we

1185
01:06:40,040 --> 01:06:44,080
Speaker 1: should point out that telephones don't really look like bananas anymore,

1186
01:06:44,200 --> 01:06:47,080
Speaker 1: like telephone receivers used to have more of a banana

1187
01:06:47,240 --> 01:06:51,000
Speaker 1: shape to them. More and more, I feel like kids

1188
01:06:51,040 --> 01:06:55,520
Speaker 1: are not exposed to those sorts of telephones. They're seeing

1189
01:06:55,760 --> 01:06:59,080
Speaker 1: smartphones that look more like TV remote controls.

1190
01:06:59,200 --> 01:07:01,520
Speaker 2: That's interesting. Well, well, you know in this in the paper,

1191
01:07:01,560 --> 01:07:03,920
Speaker 2: it was the banana as phone that was often cited.

1192
01:07:03,960 --> 01:07:06,360
Speaker 2: But I was using the example of the remotest phone

1193
01:07:06,400 --> 01:07:08,080
Speaker 2: because that is what happens in our house.

1194
01:07:08,560 --> 01:07:11,040
Speaker 1: Here's the other thing that comes to mind. The bananas

1195
01:07:11,120 --> 01:07:15,080
Speaker 1: phone definitely kills though, Like I feel like this is

1196
01:07:15,120 --> 01:07:18,560
Speaker 1: something that's definitely going to elicit laughter from grown ups.

1197
01:07:19,360 --> 01:07:20,960
Speaker 1: If a grown up does it, and if a kid

1198
01:07:21,000 --> 01:07:22,840
Speaker 1: does it, this is also going to get a lot

1199
01:07:22,880 --> 01:07:24,520
Speaker 1: of laughs out of mom and dad. I wonder to

1200
01:07:24,560 --> 01:07:26,360
Speaker 1: what extent that is factored into anything.

1201
01:07:26,880 --> 01:07:29,920
Speaker 2: Pretend play is funnier when the reach is farther and

1202
01:07:30,080 --> 01:07:31,960
Speaker 2: when the literal object is food.

1203
01:07:33,200 --> 01:07:37,080
Speaker 1: Yes, because the food the food technology gap is greater, right, yeah,

1204
01:07:37,480 --> 01:07:39,680
Speaker 1: and it you know, to get you were getting into

1205
01:07:39,800 --> 01:07:42,600
Speaker 1: the question of like, okay, how would this work if

1206
01:07:42,640 --> 01:07:45,680
Speaker 1: it were a phone? Like? That question is more ridiculous

1207
01:07:45,760 --> 01:07:49,480
Speaker 1: with the banana. How would the banana possibly function as

1208
01:07:49,520 --> 01:07:53,760
Speaker 1: a like fully grown telecommunication device? You know we can?

1209
01:07:54,360 --> 01:07:55,720
Speaker 2: So how do I put this on speaker?

1210
01:07:55,800 --> 01:07:58,920
Speaker 1: Yeah? All right, that's all I got. Those are the

1211
01:07:59,000 --> 01:07:59,959
Speaker 1: only follow up question.

1212
01:08:00,800 --> 01:08:03,520
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, well, folks, we're gonna have to cut

1213
01:08:03,560 --> 01:08:05,720
Speaker 2: part one there, but we will be back with more

1214
01:08:05,800 --> 01:08:07,480
Speaker 2: about pretend to play on Thursday.

1215
01:08:07,800 --> 01:08:11,280
Speaker 1: That's right, Bring your imaginary friend and we'll have a

1216
01:08:11,320 --> 01:08:13,920
Speaker 1: good old time, all right. In the meantime, we're just

1217
01:08:13,920 --> 01:08:16,240
Speaker 1: gonna remind you stuff to blow your mind. Primarily a

1218
01:08:16,240 --> 01:08:19,280
Speaker 1: science and culture podcast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, those are

1219
01:08:19,280 --> 01:08:20,479
Speaker 1: the core episode of publication.

1220
01:08:20,600 --> 01:08:20,920
Speaker 2: Dates.

1221
01:08:21,120 --> 01:08:23,320
Speaker 1: On Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to just

1222
01:08:23,360 --> 01:08:25,240
Speaker 1: talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. On

1223
01:08:25,280 --> 01:08:29,439
Speaker 1: Wednesdays we bust out a short form episode and yeah,

1224
01:08:29,479 --> 01:08:32,439
Speaker 1: that's generally how it works. If you're on Instagram, follow

1225
01:08:32,520 --> 01:08:34,440
Speaker 1: us at STBYM podcast.

1226
01:08:35,040 --> 01:08:38,560
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1227
01:08:38,800 --> 01:08:40,280
Speaker 2: If you would like to get in touch with us

1228
01:08:40,320 --> 01:08:42,719
Speaker 2: with feedback on this episode, or any other to suggest

1229
01:08:42,720 --> 01:08:44,639
Speaker 2: a topic for the future, or just to say hello.

1230
01:08:44,840 --> 01:08:47,360
Speaker 2: You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

1231
01:08:47,360 --> 01:08:57,640
Speaker 2: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

1232
01:08:57,720 --> 01:09:00,960
Speaker 2: production of iHeartRadio. For more podcast asks, my heart Radio.

1233
01:09:01,160 --> 01:09:04,280
Speaker 2: That's the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening

1234
01:09:04,360 --> 01:09:17,960
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.