Limitations of Dienes & Perner's (D&P's)
theory are traced to the assumption that the higher-order thought
(HOT) theory of consciousness is true. D&P claim that 18-month-old
children are capable of explicitly representing factuality, from which
it follows (on D&P's theory) that they are capable of
explicitly representing content, attitude, and self. D&P then
attempt to explain 3-year-olds' failures on tests of voluntary
control such as the dimensional change card sort by suggesting that
at this age children cannot represent content and attitude explicitly.
We provide a better levels-of-consciousness account for age-related
abulic dissociations between knowledge and action.
