Piaget's mountains revisited: Changes in the egocentric landscape.

Re-examined the theoretical question of early childhood egocentrism in relation to characteristics of the task and the method used to communicate the response. Variations were introduced in Piaget and B. Inhelder's (1956) mountain experiment to insure the age appropriateness of the task for 3- and 4-yr-olds (N = 22). When presented with a perceptual role-taking task within their response capabilities, Ss were capable of understanding another person's perspective. This suggests that previous conclusions regarding early egocentrism resulted from young children's inability to perform on tasks which were too difficult for them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)