Abstract
The present study investigated the development of temporally extended emotional understanding. It was assumed that understanding based on inferences related to the present situation (i) was transferred to inferences about others' thoughts (ii). (i) referred to inferences about others' emotions derived from cues, i.e., attribution as an emotional cause after receiving an external cue. (ii) referred to inferences about the thoughts of "the other who remembered the past after receiving a cue," whereby the cue was not considered to be an emotional cause. To test this model, 60 3-, 4-, and 5-year olds responded to stories in which they had to understand the emotions of a story character either through (i) or (ii). Participants gave inferences and explanations about the story character's emotions. The results showed that while 3-year olds could reach a temporally extended emotional understanding only through (i), (ii) was possible after 4 years of age.
