Knowledge and Ignorance Processing is Faster than Belief Processing

Data and materials from three preregistered PsychoPy-based experiments testing whether knowledge is a type of belief or a distinct, more foundational mental state. On each trial, participants read a statement concerning either reality, knowledge, or belief and judged whether it was true of a subsequently presented image. The image depicted an agent observing a table. Objects were present on the table, and the epistemic state was manipulated by occluding objects behind a barrier. Examples of the images can be seen in /materials. Response time and accuracy were the behavioural measures captured. Response times showed a consistent hierarchy: reality fastest, then knowledge, then belief. Participants were faster to deny knowledge (attribute ignorance) than to deny belief. The archive contains aggregated and cleaned analysis-ready datasets for each experiment (/data/processed). Raw individual participant data files are also included for provenance (/data/primary). The conditions files and stimuli for each experiment are located in (/materials). Each data directory contains a machine-readabledirectory_metadata.jsonfile which includes definitions for all columns in the associated data files. This archive conforms to the Psych-DS data standard. See 'Related works' below for a link to the data analysis code repository.