ArticleBritish journal of psychology (London, England : 1953)2023
A plausible role of imagination in pretend play, counterfactual reasoning, and executive functions.
Article in British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953), 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Birth Order and Screen Time as Predictors of Emotion Comprehension Development in 5- to 7-Year-Old Boys and Girls.Psychology in Russia : state of the art · 2026Article
- Parent assessment of their child's play: A psychometric study on the Pretend Play Enjoyment Developmental Checklist.The British journal of occupational therapy · 2025Article
- A plausible role of imagination in pretend play, counterfactual reasoning, and executive functions.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2023Article
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2 authors.
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Abstract
A notable observation is the similarities in the cognitive processes of pretend play (PP) and counterfactual reasoning (CFR) as both involve thinking about alternatives to reality. It is argued by Weisberg and Gopnik (Cogn. Sci., 37, 2013, 1368) that alternative thinking in PP and CFR is underpinned by an imaginary representational capacity but few studies have empirically investigated this link. We use a variable latent modelling approach to test a hypothetical model of the structural relationship of PP and CFR predicting that if PP and CFR are cognitively similar; they should have similar patterns of associations with Executive Functions (EFs). Data were collected on PP, CFR, EFs and Language from 189 children (M = 4.8 years, males = 101, females = 88). Confirmatory factor analyses showed that measures of PP and CFR loaded onto single latent constructs and were significantly correlated (r = .51, p = .001) with each other. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that EF accounted for unique significant variance in both PP (β = 21) and CFR (β = 22). The results of the structural equation modelling revealed that the data were a good fit for the hypothetical model. We discuss the plausible role of a general underlying imaginative representational capacity to explain similarities in the cognitive mechanisms of different states of alternative thinking like PP and CFR.
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