Lead
"She's feeding her stuffed animals." "He's giving injections to the dolls and playing doctor." From around age two, most children begin to engage in pretend play. To an adult, it is charming. To a developmental psychologist, the question of why a child can treat something unreal as real has been a central research problem for nearly four decades.
That pretend play is deeply connected to the development of Theory of Mind — the ability to understand that other people hold beliefs and desires different from one's own — has been shown by multiple studies. But how they are connected, and specifically whether pretend play causes Theory of Mind to develop or whether both are expressions of the same underlying cognitive capacity, remains actively debated. This article lays out the theory and evidence honestly, without smoothing over what is still uncertain.