Ignorance versus False Belief: A Developmental Lag in Attribution of Epistemic States

HOGREFE, G.-JUERGEN; WIMMER, HEINZ; and PERNER, JOSEF. Ignorance versus False Belief: A Developmental Lag in Attribution of Epistemic States. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1986, 57, 567-582. 3-6-year-old children were either put into real-life situations or were read stories in which another person or story character was excluded from certain information. Their competence in attributing absence of knowledge (ignorance) was compared to their competence in attributing a false belief to the other. A marked difference between attributions was found. In a transitional stage at 3-4 years children were able to attribute ignorance but failed to attribute the resulting false belief. The same developmental gap for children about 2 years older was found between the attribution of secondorder ignorance and second-order false belief. Results are interpreted to show that children at a transitional stage find it difficult to represent the incompatible propositions describing the true state of affairs and the state of affairs falsely believed to be true by the other. Such a complexity is not involved in the understanding of ignorance where it has just to be represented that the other does not share the representation of the true state of affairs.