Understanding minds and evidence for belief: A study of Mofu children in Cameroon

Abstract

This study explores young children’s understanding of mind and their ability to give evidence for belief. Mofu children of Cameroon were chosen as participants as they provide a unique opportunity to compare the development of an understanding of minds and evidence in schooled and nonschooled populations. A series of standard theory-of-mind tasks were given to 154 children, as well as a novel evidence task. Results suggest that children who have attended school develop an understanding of minds earlier than nonattenders. School attenders did not show superior understanding of evidence for false belief. They did perform better than the nonschooled sample, however, on a question concerning evidence for a subsequent true belief, although performance on this question for both groups was poor.

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