Volume 109, Issue 2, November 2008, Pages 224–234
Abstract
There
is currently much controversy about which, if any, mental states
chimpanzees and other nonhuman primates understand. In the current two
studies we tested both chimpanzees’ and human children’s understanding
of both knowledge–ignorance and false belief – in the same experimental
paradigm involving competition with a conspecific. We found that whereas
6-year-old children understood both of these mental states, chimpanzees
understood knowledge–ignorance but not false belief. After ruling out
various alternative explanations of these and related findings, we
conclude that in at least some situations chimpanzees know what others
know. Possible explanations for their failure in the highly similar
false belief task are discussed.
Keywords
- Knowledge;
- False belief;
- Mental states;
- Chimpanzees;
- Theory of mind;
- Social cognition
Copyright © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
