WEBVTT - From the Vault: Pretend Play, Part 4 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:08.360 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. It's 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:12.039 Saturday Fault episode coming at you. Pretend Play Part four. 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:14.920 It's that simple. This was part four of five and 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:18.880 it originally published one one, twenty twenty five. Let's have it. 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:26.040 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:34.760 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:35.880 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:39.120 And I am Joe McCormick. And today we returned the 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:44.159 fourth installment in our discussion of pretend play, play that 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:48.879 involves non literal action and understanding. So when I pretend 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:52.040 my fingers are worms crawling up the side of the couch, 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.080 that's going on in our house this week, by the way, 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:58.720 fingers are worms. Or when I pretend a cardboard box 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.000 becomes the castle grace skull, or when I change the 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.160 diaper on a stuffed velociraptor, or if I go on 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.360 adventures in the backyard with an imaginary friend. These are 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:11.759 all forms of pretend play play that takes place within 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:15.000 a pretend frame and treats anything in the world or 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.000 in the situation as other than what it literally is. Now, 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:21.120 if you haven't heard the previous parts in this series, 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.440 I think This is one where we really would recommend 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:25.720 listening in order. We're going to be building on some 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:30.360 conversations we had in previous episodes today, but in those 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:34.800 previous installments to refresh, we talked about ways that researchers 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:39.520 define and subdivide pretend play into activities like object substitution. 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:43.600 So one of our favorite examples is banana is a telephone. 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.320 They talk about that a lot in the research enactment 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:49.920 play where you Might be. You know, I am cooking 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.280 dinner in my play Kitchen replica, play where you have 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:58.640 my toy Triceratops is cooking dinner in the dollhouse, imaginary companions, 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:03.520 and other things. We talked about possible links explored in 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.800 the research between pretend play and the development of advanced 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:13.520 cognitive skills like symbolic understanding, counterfactual reasoning, and theory of mind, 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:17.720 addressing the question of whether pretending might help children develop 0:02:17.800 --> 0:02:21.680 some of those important faculties, or at least whether pretending 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:25.640 in those faculties might draw on the same underlying neural structures. 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:29.520 In Part two, we talked in more depth about research 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:33.960 on imaginary friends and imaginary companions, how often they manifest 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:37.320 within and across different cultures, what forms they take, what 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:40.800 children believe they know, and things like that. In the 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:43.480 most recent episode, we looked more at the question of 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:48.760 how adult culture influences pretend play among children, noting that 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:52.400 while pretending does appear to be basically universal, there is 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:57.000 pretty wide variation in how much children play pretend and 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:01.280 in the themes of the pretend play in some particular cases, 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:05.359 in the framing of whether pretend entities are understood as 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:09.920 real in some important way or not. And then last 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:15.000 time we also examined the fascinating phenomenon of paracosms, essentially 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.800 extending the concept of an imaginary friend to where it 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.079 is not only a single character or playmate, but an 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:27.480 entire imaginary world, maybe with its own geography, culture, populations, 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:31.639 and rules. And we discussed links between a childhood tendency 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:36.000 to generate paracosms and things like creativity in later life. 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:40.520 Yeah. Yeah, and I have a paracosm update here. Oh really, yeah, 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:43.080 because after we'd record this, I realized, well, my child 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.720 is twelve and almost thirteen, which places them toward the 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:50.240 end of what is broadly considered the paracosm period for kids. 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:54.040 So I asked them the next morning over breakfast. I 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.600 was like, I know, you had some pretend worlds and 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.760 or have pretend worlds that you sometimes in Gaine with 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:05.960 other friends. Tell me about them, and so they laid 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:07.800 it all out for me. They said, there are two 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:12.120 pretend worlds, both of them social in nature, that they 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.760 shared with one particular other friend. So one of these 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:20.240 with one friend is essentially an extrapolation of Star Wars. 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.520 They said. It's different planets set in the Old Republic 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:29.040 era on which Jedis have adventures. Okay, which I think 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:30.960 that's a pretty good example because it's like, clearly it's 0:04:30.960 --> 0:04:34.040 built upon the Star Wars universe, but a universe like 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:36.680 the Star Wars universe is kind of limitless, so yeah, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:40.080 you can build out other things that draw on the 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.720 existing Star Wars lore but generate new ideas as well. 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:47.120 And then the other one, I think this was earlier, 0:04:48.000 --> 0:04:51.440 was a really wild take on Pokemon that they had 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.400 with another friend that was super into Pokemon at the time, 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.960 and they would describe these epic wars between Pokemon factions 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:02.080 and like an e Pikachu. It was really wild and 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.400 at the time it was like it at times it 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:06.520 was a little much. I was like, this is Pikachu's 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.240 at an ally, guys, what are you doing? 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.560 Is evil Pikachu already a thing? Or is that that's 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:13.800 purely original? 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:16.480 I mean, Pikachu's been around long enough. I imagine all 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:20.440 variations possible have been drummed off. Pikachu, I'm sure has 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:22.760 played a role in various paracosms. 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.240 I am Pikachu, I contain multitudes. 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.080 Yeah, for some reason, these kids didn't like Pikachu. I 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.080 think they didn't like Pikachu's fame, like Pikachu being the 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:36.520 most famous of the Pokemon, but they love Piachu, the 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.360 Pokemon that evolves into Pikachu. So there you go. 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:43.240 Gotta take Pikachu down a pig I guess so well. Obviously, 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:45.400 Pretend to Play is a really rich subject where we 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.359 just keep finding new angles to examine and things to 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:50.600 talk about. I don't know exactly how many parts we're 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:52.600 going to go to here. This will be part four. 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.240 We may actually make it to part five in this series. 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.160 But there was something I wanted to address in today's episode. 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:04.640 One reason is that one of the big overviews of 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:07.680 Pretend to Play research addressing like the links with other 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.000 cognitive capacities and stuff like that. One of the big 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:12.520 overviews we talked about. It's about ten years old at 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:14.360 this point, so I was looking around for some more 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.120 recent research on pretend to play to see if there 0:06:17.120 --> 0:06:19.240 are kind of updates to any of the stuff we've 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.280 already talked about. Obviously there's new stuff coming out all 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:25.159 the time. But one thing that caught my attention was 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:28.440 when I came across an interesting write up in Nautilus 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:33.200 by Elena Rankin from September twenty twenty four, which was 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.560 reporting on a paper published in the journal Cognitive Development 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.159 the same year. And that paper was by a pair 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:43.000 of researchers named Elena Hoyka who is affiliated with the 0:06:43.080 --> 0:06:47.160 University of Bristol, and Eloise Prutin, who at the time 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:51.440 I believe was a trainee clinical psychologist at Oxford. And 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:55.760 this paper is called the Early Pretending Survey or EPs, 0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:00.320 A Reliable Parent Report Measure of pretense type development for 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:05.240 four to forty seven month olds. Now, we've already talked 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:09.279 about a few different kinds of pretend play and how 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.880 they don't all emerge at once, but rather come online 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.320 at different times as a child grows up. As the 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:21.280 children develop different mental and physical capabilities. Something interesting that 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:25.240 this twenty twenty four paper did was get really granular 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:29.680 in that specific regard breaking pretend play down into lots 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:34.240 of different categories, in fact, into nineteen different categories of activity. 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:37.120 And then they did a large survey of the parents 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:40.080 of about nine hundred kids between the ages of four 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.760 months old to forty seven months, which is just shy 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.000 four years old, to try to get fine detail on 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:50.440 when parents observed all these different types of pretend play 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:55.480 first manifesting. Now you might think nineteen different types of pretending, 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.560 like how do you get to that? Like beyond the 0:07:57.600 --> 0:07:59.440 banana phone, I don't know what else is there? You 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:03.559 gotta imagine andary friends, banana phone, I'm a lion. What's left? 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:07.400 And it's true that some of these categories they explore 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.560 are kind of overlapping or are kind of subdivisions of 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.120 activities we've already talked about into two different subtypes, but 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:16.960 I still thought it was really interesting, and this brought 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.480 up stuff that I had actually observed with my own 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:23.680 daughter but had sort of forgotten about in our earlier 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.040 discussions of pretend play from this series. So I want 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:30.680 to look through this list of play activities from the paper. 0:08:30.760 --> 0:08:32.920 Okay, all right, this will be fun because yeah, I 0:08:32.920 --> 0:08:35.360 think we can compare notes in multiple ways here. 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:37.199 So we're going to start with some we haven't really 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:41.400 talked about before. One category is pretending to be in 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:45.840 another state. Now that's not a state, like a geographic region, 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:50.000 a state, another state of being, like pretending to be asleep, 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:54.080 or pretending to sneeze when you don't actually have to sneeze. 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:58.520 Somewhat similar but a little bit different, is pretending to cry. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.600 Okay, there are different dynamics to all of these, because 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:06.680 you know, you can pretend to cry and work yourself 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.000 up to a real cry. Oh sure, I don't know 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:11.360 if you can do that with a sneeze. Maybe there's 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.320 been research into this. Likewise, you can pretend to be 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:15.760 asleep and fall asleep. 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:20.359 But yeah, okay, here's another one. Pretending to do everyday 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:24.040 adult activities like cooking or driving. We could think of 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.480 this as a kind of enactment play. So we've already 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:30.920 talked about versions of this. Pretending that this is apparently 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.880 really big. It sounds very specific, but it's a very 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:39.080 very commonly observed thing. Pretending empty vessels are full, so 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:43.920 drinking from an actually empty cup or pouring One example 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.240 I thought of is pouring invisible cereal out of an 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:51.000 empty cereal box into a bowl. And this one can 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.280 actually split up into three subtypes. So there is pretending 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.040 empty vessels are full in relation to serving the self, 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.680 like I drink from a literally cup. Then there is 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.360 pretending empty vessels are full. On another, I feed my 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.720 doll from this empty cup, or I try to make 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.559 Dad drink from the empty cup, and then finally pretending 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:14.920 empty vessels are full on many others. So I'm feeding 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.360 many different toys or people in this manner. 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:18.160 Yeah. 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:20.679 Yeah, looking back that I remember doing a lot of 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:25.520 sampling of various food, imaginary food, or drinks that my 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:26.760 kid had prepared you. 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:31.120 Another one is what the authors call gesturing an object. 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:36.080 This would not be external object substitution, but instead things 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:40.560 like my finger is a toothbrush, essentially mentally extending or 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:44.959 substituting parts of the body as a pretend external object. 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.920 Okay, finger guns wouldnt imagine. 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.640 Okay, Yeah, then after that you got one that will 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:53.079 be more familiar to us, pretending to be an object 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.080 like I am a tree. There is pretend what. 0:10:57.640 --> 0:10:59.880 I'm so sorry, I'm just imagining that pretend gang. 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.920 Yeah, it's very Yeah, I don't know, it's more complex 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:03.600 than you might think. 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:05.240 Yeah, for the quiet kids. 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:08.680 There's pretending to be an animal, like I am a 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:09.360 bunny rabbit. 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:15.360 This was huge with my child until really very recently. 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.400 There would often be requested to play zookeeper at playgrounds 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.360 where I would have to be a zookeeper doing a 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.959 British accent, like a like an Attenborough type accent, describing 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:29.000 nature documentary style what the animal is doing while they 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:30.280 did animal pretend play. 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:35.480 That's beautiful. There is classical object substitution, which we've already 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.640 talked about, but they actually break this down into multiple categories. 0:11:39.000 --> 0:11:43.320 There is object substitution with non descript props, so this 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:47.319 might be when the literal prop is somewhat generic and versatile, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.400 like toy block is a phone. And then there is 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:56.400 object substitution with more specific props that are very different 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:59.320 from the thing they're mimicking, so like toy car is 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:01.040 a telephone? 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.199 Interesting, all right, and so this is casual optic substitution, 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.360 So imagine this is different. This differs from something that 0:12:07.440 --> 0:12:11.199 I saw later on with my child, where they would 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:16.320 craft a pretend telephone or a pretend computer, or a 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:20.000 pretend Nintendo switch out of like cardboard and stuff like that. 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.200 That seems more specific than what we're talking about here. 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:24.080 Yeah, that does seem like a different thing. If you're 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:26.560 building it, that's like a like the play, if the 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.319 play is centered around the fabrication process. 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.199 Yeah. Yeah, And I guess you get into the example 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:34.480 that I already brought up about the lightsabers building a 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:35.320 lightsaber help. 0:12:35.800 --> 0:12:39.760 Yeah, Okay. After this, there is pretending to be another person. 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.079 This would be a really existing person like I am 0:12:42.160 --> 0:12:43.559 Grandpa or I am Mom. 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:45.760 Okay, I don't think we did that one. 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:51.520 And then there are further distinctions about the social context. 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:55.800 There's pretending alone versus pretending with somebody else. And I 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:57.920 guess those two categories could apply to any of the 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:03.120 above categories you mentioned. Beyond this, there is what the 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:08.240 authors call socio dramatic pretending. This means creating not just 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:13.120 a single action in pretense, but creating a more elaborate 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:17.119 pretend story. So maybe not just like I am Grandpa, 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.880 I pour tea like Grandpa. Instead it's like I am 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:23.600 Grandpa and I want to go to the store to 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.280 buy candy for my doggie. But on the way to 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.040 the store, I get attacked by pirates and my doggie 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:30.640 gets hurt and I have to put a band aid 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:32.600 on my doggie so he can feel better, and then 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:34.520 we all go swimming in the lake, and you know, 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:38.400 so forth after that. There is pretending to be fantasy 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.800 characters already existing in culture, like you know, I am 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:45.080 Princess Leiah, I am Batman, I am Santa Claus, that 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:45.760 sort of thing. 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:50.640 And obviously we encourage that across the board, yes, you know, 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.880 and for a children and adults, you know, certainly get 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:57.720 into that dressing up as these various characters. So yeah, 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.200 I think I think a lot of us very very 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:01.480 much encouraged this sort of thing. 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.320 There is, of course, pretending to have an imaginary friend 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:07.120 or companion. We've already talked about that a lot. There is. 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.600 I thought this was an interesting distinction. There is pretending 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:15.079 to do real activities that are not available to most 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:18.520 people most of the time, So real activities, but not 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:22.840 everyday activities. And examples of this might be I am 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.920 a rocket ship commander. That's a real thing, but most 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.440 people don't do that I am a pop singer and 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:31.200 I'm on TV in front of millions. That's a real thing. 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:34.480 Most people don't do it, So that's distinct from both 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:40.080 fantasy activities and from everyday activities like driving or cooking. 0:14:40.880 --> 0:14:43.960 One of my kids friends would pretend to open their 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:44.440 own bank. 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:47.440 That's sort of in the category. 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:49.760 Yeah, they'd make their own money. I think I still 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:52.720 have some of their pretend bills around here somewhere in 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:59.040 one of my books. It's a bookmark called them Darryl Bucks. 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:02.000 That is curious. And then finally you've got acting out 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:06.120 completely made up fantasy scenarios. I ride a dragon through 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:08.760 the sky and I use magic to transform people into 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:10.040 cats and that sort of thing. 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:20.560 Yeah. 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:23.440 So I really liked this granular attention to detail and 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:27.000 the different ways that pretend to play can manifest. And 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:31.840 this paper actually developed a new tool for asking participant 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:36.960 parents questions to track the emergence of these different pretend activities. 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:39.760 So the tool the authors developed was called the Early 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:44.160 Pretending Survey or EPs, and the authors tested the EPs 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:50.120 for internal reliability, stability over time, inter observer agreement, and 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:53.360 they found it performed pretty well, which they leveraged to 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.920 argue that the EPs could be quote useful for researchers 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:01.040 to better understand how pretending relates to other areas of development, eg. 0:16:01.280 --> 0:16:05.680 Cognition and language. Now, I can imagine we've already talked 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:10.880 in some ways about difficulties with relying on parental reports 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:15.680 for understanding childhood play, and those things are here as well. 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:19.040 But I can imagine that one advantage of using parental 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:22.400 reports in a survey as opposed to directly observing children 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:25.600 play in a lab is that the lab setting for 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:29.080 one thing might change what the children do, and so 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:33.160 relying on parental observations gives you access to how children 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.400 behave in settings that are normal for them, you know, 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.840 like what they do at home or at school, and 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.640 in places where they normally are. I think we can 0:16:43.680 --> 0:16:45.600 all relate to the fact that when we go to 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:49.320 an unfamiliar and maybe even uncomfortable place, we act different. 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:53.440 Yeah yeah, And on top of that, this reminds me 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:56.240 of an example from some studies we're talking about with 0:16:56.280 --> 0:17:00.960 imaginary friends, where it was pointed out that a you 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.000 want to talk to the kid and the adult, but 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:05.639 when you ask the kid about their imaginary friends, they 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.000 might just create one right there on the spot. 0:17:08.359 --> 0:17:08.639 Yeah. 0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:12.760 So that's a great example where it's also good to 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:14.920 chat with the parent and they'll be like, I've never 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:18.120 heard of mister Bongoes. I think they made mister Bongoes 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:20.320 up like literally just now for fun. 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:21.959 Yeah, because you brought up the idea. 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:25.080 Yeah, yeah, you let mister bong goes. 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:29.960 In, right. So the laboratory observation setting might be a 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.760 conjuring Captain Howdy kind of thing with the Ouiji aboard. 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:38.240 Another big thing is that obviously having to have researchers 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:42.680 directly observe children playing over time in a laboratory setting 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.959 or any kind of whatever the controlled setting is is 0:17:47.119 --> 0:17:49.959 just cumbersome, you know, It's like time consuming, and so 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:52.639 a survey format allows you to gather much larger sample 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:57.200 sizes than direct observation in a controlled setting. It's because 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:00.680 that the latter is costly and time consuming. So the 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:05.120 author has administered this survey to parents primarily in the US, UK, Canada, 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:08.800 and Australia in across the years twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.080 and I was interested what did they find. I can't 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:14.600 discuss everything mentioned in the paper, but some of the 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:17.960 highlights we've been talking. Here's one thing that's kind of 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:21.480 surprising based on our previous discussion. We've been talking about 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:26.080 a prevailing belief that object substitution like you know, banana 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:28.960 is a phone, is usually one of the first types 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:32.639 of pretend play observed, most often emerging at one and 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:36.200 a half years of age or so. But this survey found, 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:39.560 and this agrees with some previous research, that actually there 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:43.400 are some other types of pretend play that come even earlier, 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.320 come before object substitution, and these would be some of 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.399 the more specific ones that we were talking about at 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.640 the beginning of the list. The list I read earlier 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:58.239 was roughly roughly in the chronological order of observance. So 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:04.639 remember the empty pretend play. The EPs found that this 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:07.600 happens early, with like half of kids doing it by 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:11.600 around thirteen months of age, and then the other thing 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.920 before object substitution is by around fifteen months. Half of 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:19.360 kids have shown some signs of pretending with their own body, 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:22.159 such as pretending to be in a different state, like 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:26.760 pretending to sleep or pretending to sneeze, or pretending to 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.640 be something else with their body like I am a tiger, 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:33.960 I'm growling, roar, and then it's by seventeen months of 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:37.600 age or so that half had shown signs of object substitution. 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:40.480 So this does agree in part with the schedule we've 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:43.479 been talking about before, where object substitution shows up on 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:46.199 average about one and a half years old, but finds 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:49.240 that some types of pretend play tend to happen even 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.840 earlier than object substitution. And though I didn't really think 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.760 much about either of these earlier examples, now that I 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.159 reflect on it, I have to yes myself, because you know, 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:03.440 my memory is involved, and who knows what I'm being 0:20:03.480 --> 0:20:07.080 primed to misremember here, But I think this squares exactly 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:09.960 with my own experience as the parent of a toddler, 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.359 Like I have a two year old right now, and 0:20:12.520 --> 0:20:15.200 my memory may be gein correct, but I think before 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:19.160 my daughter ever pretended one object was another, she would 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:23.240 pretend to sneeze and pretend to be asleep, and also 0:20:23.400 --> 0:20:26.359 pretend to eat or drink things that were not really there, 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:28.840 and she thought it was hilarious with most of these. 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.119 Yeah, I don't remember how this shook out with my 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:37.200 own kit, but in general this does seem accurate. 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:42.000 Yeah, Now, from here, the story based socio dramatic play 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:44.200 that we were talking about that starts to happen more 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.080 when kids are around two years old usually, and then 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:50.879 complex make believe fantasy concepts tend to take hold when 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.359 children are around three. And of course it may be 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:57.639 that these later play types are dependent on the development 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.720 of language skills, so as children get better at using 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:06.040 manipulating language, that also sort of helps them construct these 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:11.560 abstract or counterfactual scenarios. Now, what about other general findings 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:13.679 in this paper. Well, one thing is that within the 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:17.320 survey range like four months to four years, kids pretending 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:21.639 scores steadily increased with age, which actually made me wonder, okay, 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:24.720 in this early period is just basically going straight up, 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:30.160 when do we actually see reductions in pretend play? That 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.479 actually came up in the Nautilus article that I shouted 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:36.560 out for pointing me to this research, because the author 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:40.640 of that Nautilus article cited some commentary by a researcher 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:45.000 named Sandra Russ at Case Western and Russ says that 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:47.560 it is most often around the age of nine or 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:51.680 ten that children start to kind of relinquish their pretend play. 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.400 But of course that can vary, and you could argue 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.800 with most people, it never completely goes away. Some people 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:03.480 continue to show similar imag imaginative behavior into adulthood, even 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:06.800 if it's not exactly play like when they were a child. 0:22:07.040 --> 0:22:10.280 They might have creative hobbies like writing or art or acting, 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.120 which could be in some ways analogous. And of course 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:16.199 some kids continue pretending into older ages. I think we 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:21.040 talked about how, you know, with kids that start building paracosms, 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:24.960 those it's I think fairly common for those to continue 0:22:25.119 --> 0:22:27.240 from ages like eight to twelve or so. 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:31.359 Yeah, yeah, like twelve or thirteen, Yeah, somewhere in that range. So, 0:22:32.400 --> 0:22:33.959 and I guess that makes sense if you're looking at 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:38.840 this as like a general progression of one's use of imagination, 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:41.919 that that would continue a little bit, a little bit 0:22:41.960 --> 0:22:43.080 further into your development. 0:22:43.800 --> 0:22:47.080 Any other broad differences within the children in the survey, 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:51.600 One was that girls, on average had a somewhat higher 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:54.400 EPs score than boys, though it was a small difference. 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:58.000 The gender difference was not huge, but it was statistically significant. 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:02.719 And also I thought this was interesting. Children of younger 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:09.640 parents had higher EPs scores than children of older parents. Now, 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:12.960 again these differences are not huge, but that's interesting. Why 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:15.800 would pretending be happening a little bit more, a little 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:19.080 bit earlier in girls and in children of younger parents. 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:22.399 In both cases, it's not known with high confidence what 0:23:22.480 --> 0:23:24.880 explains it, but the authors offer a couple of informed 0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:29.040 guesses in their discussion section as to the gender distinction. 0:23:29.720 --> 0:23:33.560