ABSTRACT

During the elementary school years, children change in their views of the distribution of knowledge in other minds as well as in their views of their own knowledge. Two patterns of conceptual change are involved that also interact: (1) an increasing understanding that most of knowledge is acquired secondhand through testimony as opposed to through direct experience; and (2) a growing awareness of how causal patterns in the world can guide inferences about the division of cognitive labor. These patterns are considered in detail as well as the implications for science education and the developing theory of mind.