Is knowledge ascription primary relative to belief ascription? Evidence from reaction time studies

In our folk psychology, which cognitive attitude that we ascribe is primary? Tra-ditionally, in epistemology and in Theory of Mind research in cognitive science, it was assumed that belief is the primary cognitive attitude, and that knowledge is second-ary, derived from belief (as justified true belief). More recent Knowledge First Episte-mology and Factive Theory of Mind accounts claim the revers: knowledge ascription is primary relative to belief ascription. Various sources of evidence are adduced in favor of these accounts, among them reaction time asymmetries: adults have been found to be faster to ascribe knowledge than belief to other agents. The present study tested whether these effects are robust and really indicate an asymmetry between knowledge and belief ascription. An alternative possibility is that subjects were merely faster in ascribing simpler, non-propositional states of information access relative to full-fledged, meta-representational, propositional belief ascription. To test for this possibility, subjects were asked about the knowledge or beliefs of agents in situations that did or did not involve fine-grained aspectual scenarios that require full-blown propositional belief and knowledge ascription. Across three studies, subjects (N~ 5000) were faster to ascribe knowledge than belief across conditions and task variations that controlled for pragmatic and lexical frequency effects. Taken together, these studies present converging evidence that knowledge ascription is primary rela-tive to belief ascription and thus speak for Factive Theory of Mind accounts.