Infants' false belief understanding: A non-replication of the helping task

False belief understanding in infancy can be measured through helping tasks. However, there has been controversy surrounding the interpretation of such data. In order to better understand the nature of infants' false belief understanding, replication of the original findings is critical. The objective of the present study was to conduct a conceptual replication of the helping task designed by Buttelmann, Carpenter, and Tomasello (2009). In Experiment 1, 41 18-month-olds were tested using the false belief task. A larger sample (n = 97) was tested in Experiment 2 with this task in order to increase statistical power. Additionally, 33 infants were tested on a true belief task. Results from both experiments failed to replicate those from the original study. The discussion addresses the potential reasons for this lack of replication, as well as the implication of these findings regarding the debate on the interpretation of infants' behavior in this prompted-action task.