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Ransom A, Ruggeri A, Ronfard S. When is it appropriate to ask a question? The role of age, social context, and personality. J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 245:105976. [PMID: 38824690 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105976] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/06/2023] [Revised: 02/29/2024] [Accepted: 04/29/2024] [Indexed: 06/04/2024]
Abstract
How do children decide when it is appropriate to ask a question? In Study 1 (preregistered), 50 4- and 5-year-olds, 50 7- and 8-year-olds, and 100 adults watched vignettes featuring a child who had a question, and participants indicated whether they thought the child should ask the question "right now." Both adults and children endorsed more question-asking to a well-known informant than to an acquaintance and to someone doing nothing than to someone busy working or busy socializing. However, younger children endorsed asking questions to someone who was busy more often than older children and adults. In addition, Big Five personality traits predicted endorsement of question-asking. In Study 2 (preregistered, N = 500), mothers' self-reports showed that children's actual question-asking varied with age, informant activity, and informant familiarity in ways that paralleled the results of Study 1. In Study 3 (N = 100), we examined mothers' responses to their children's question-asking and found that mothers' responses to their children's question-asking varied based on the mother's activity. In addition, mothers high in authoritarianism were less likely to answer their children's questions when they were busy than mothers low in authoritarianism. In sum, across three studies, we found evidence that the age-related decline in children's question-asking to their parents reflects a change in children's reasoning about when it is appropriate to ask a question.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ashley Ransom
- University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario L5L1C6, Canada.
| | - Azzurra Ruggeri
- Central European University Vienna, 1100 Wien, Austria; Technical University Munich (TUM) School of Social Sciences and Technology, 80335 Munich, Germany
| | - Samuel Ronfard
- University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario L5L1C6, Canada
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2
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Forss S, Ciria A, Clark F, Galusca CL, Harrison D, Lee S. A transdisciplinary view on curiosity beyond linguistic humans: animals, infants, and artificial intelligence. Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2024; 99:979-998. [PMID: 38287201 DOI: 10.1111/brv.13054] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/19/2023] [Revised: 01/08/2024] [Accepted: 01/12/2024] [Indexed: 01/31/2024]
Abstract
Curiosity is a core driver for life-long learning, problem-solving and decision-making. In a broad sense, curiosity is defined as the intrinsically motivated acquisition of novel information. Despite a decades-long history of curiosity research and the earliest human theories arising from studies of laboratory rodents, curiosity has mainly been considered in two camps: 'linguistic human' and 'other'. This is despite psychology being heritable, and there are many continuities in cognitive capacities across the animal kingdom. Boundary-pushing cross-disciplinary debates on curiosity are lacking, and the relative exclusion of pre-linguistic infants and non-human animals has led to a scientific impasse which more broadly impedes the development of artificially intelligent systems modelled on curiosity in natural agents. In this review, we synthesize literature across multiple disciplines that have studied curiosity in non-verbal systems. By highlighting how similar findings have been produced across the separate disciplines of animal behaviour, developmental psychology, neuroscience, and computational cognition, we discuss how this can be used to advance our understanding of curiosity. We propose, for the first time, how features of curiosity could be quantified and therefore studied more operationally across systems: across different species, developmental stages, and natural or artificial agents.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sofia Forss
- Collegium Helveticum, Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Zurich, ETH Zurich and Zurich University of the Arts, Zurich, Switzerland
- Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Alejandra Ciria
- School of Psychology, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico
| | - Fay Clark
- School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
| | - Cristina-Loana Galusca
- Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, CNRS Université Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France
| | - David Harrison
- Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Saein Lee
- Interdisciplinary Program of EcoCreative, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
- Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
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3
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Karadağ D, Bazhydai M, Koşkulu-Sancar S, Şen HH. The breadth and specificity of 18-month-old's infant-initiated interactions in naturalistic home settings. Infant Behav Dev 2024; 74:101927. [PMID: 38428279 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2024.101927] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2023] [Revised: 09/08/2023] [Accepted: 02/05/2024] [Indexed: 03/03/2024]
Abstract
Infants actively initiate social interactions aiming to elicit different types of responses from other people. This study aimed to document a variety of communicative interactions initiated by 18-month-old Turkish infants from diverse SES (N = 43) with their caregivers in their natural home settings. The infant-initiated interactions such as use of deictic gestures (e.g., pointing, holdouts), action demonstrations, vocalizations, and non-specific play actions were coded from video recordings and classified into two categories as need-based and non-need-based. Need-based interactions were further classified as a) biological (e.g., feeding); b) socio-emotional (e.g., cuddling), and non-need-based interactions (i.e., communicative intentions) were coded as a) expressive, b) requestive; c) information/help-seeking; d) information-giving. Infant-initiated non-need-based (88%) interactions were more prevalent compared to need-based interactions (12%). Among the non-need-based interactions, 50% aimed at expressing or sharing attention or emotion, 26% aimed at requesting an object or an action, and 12% aimed at seeking information or help. Infant-initiated information-giving events were rare. We further investigated the effects of familial SES and infant sex, finding no effect of either on the number of infant-initiated interactions. These findings suggest that at 18 months, infants actively communicate with their social partners to fulfil their need-based and non-need-based motivations using a wide range of verbal and nonverbal behaviors, regardless of their sex and socio-economic background. This study thoroughly characterizes a wide and detailed range of infant-initiated spontaneous communicative bids in hard-to-access contexts (infants' daily lives at home) and with a traditionally underrepresented non-WEIRD population.
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Affiliation(s)
- Didar Karadağ
- Lancaster University, Department of Psychology, Lancaster, UK.
| | - Marina Bazhydai
- Lancaster University, Department of Psychology, Lancaster, UK
| | - Sümeyye Koşkulu-Sancar
- Utrecht University, Department of Educational and Pedagogical Sciences, Utrecht, the Netherlands
| | - Hilal H Şen
- University of Akureyri, Faculty of Psychology, Akureyri, Iceland
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Fabio RA, Croce A, Calabrese C. Critical Thinking in Ethical and Neutral Settings in Gifted Children and Non-Gifted Children. CHILDREN (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2022; 10:children10010074. [PMID: 36670625 PMCID: PMC9856652 DOI: 10.3390/children10010074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2022] [Revised: 12/18/2022] [Accepted: 12/27/2022] [Indexed: 01/03/2023]
Abstract
The present study examined the performance on five phases of critical thinking in gifted and nongifted children in two settings: ethical and neutral. Ninety-one children, 32 gifted (8-10 years old), 32 normally developing children matched for chronological age (8-10 years old) and 27 normally developing children matched for mental age (12-13 years old) completed critical thinking tasks. The findings confirmed that intellectually gifted children had higher critical thinking capacity than typically developing children. The results reveal that the basic factor determining best performances in critical thinking is mental age and not chronological age. However, critical thinking ability was the same in ethical and neutral settings. Analysis of the phases of critical thinking show that the first and the third phase, clarification and evaluation, specifically differentiates gifted from nongifted children. These phases refer to the ability to understand the type of problem rapidly and to assess the credibility of statements and to assess the logical strength of the actual or intended inferential relationships among statements, descriptions, questions or other forms of representation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rosa Angela Fabio
- Department of Economy, University of Messina, via dei Verdi, 75, 98122 Messina, Italy
- Correspondence: ; Tel.: +39-0906766032
| | - Alessandra Croce
- Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Messina, via Bivona, 98122 Messina, Italy
| | - Chiara Calabrese
- Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Messina, via Bivona, 98122 Messina, Italy
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5
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Harris PL. Young children share imagined possibilities: evidence for an early-emerging human competence. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2022; 377:20220022. [PMID: 36314146 PMCID: PMC9620757 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/22/2022] [Accepted: 05/24/2022] [Indexed: 07/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Children's ability to reason about junctures leading to two different destinations emerges slowly, with convergent evidence for a conceptual watershed at approximately 4 years. Young children and great apes misrepresent such junctures, planning for only one expected outcome. However, singular possibilities, as opposed to two mutually exclusive possibilities, are readily imagined, shared and acted upon by 2- and 3-year-olds. Analysis of three domains supports this claim. First, 2- and 3-year-olds respond appropriately to pretend spatial displacements enacted for them by a play partner. Second, they not only respond accurately to claims regarding an alleged but unwitnessed spatial displacement, they also ask their interlocutors about the possible whereabouts of missing objects and absent persons. Third, in ordinary conversation, they appropriately mark some of their assertions as possibilities rather than actualities. In summary, although the ability to reason about mutually inconsistent possibilities develops slowly in the preschool years, the ability to imagine and share information about possibilities is evident among 2- and 3-year-olds. Nothing comparable has been observed in great apes. Young children's ability to entertain shared possibilities diverges from that of non-human primates well before any potential watershed at 4 years with respect to the understanding of mutually exclusive possibilities. This article is part of the theme issue 'Thinking about possibilities: mechanisms, ontogeny, functions and phylogeny'.
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Schleihauf H, Herrmann E, Fischer J, Engelmann JM. How children revise their beliefs in light of reasons. Child Dev 2022; 93:1072-1089. [PMID: 35383921 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13758] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
We investigate how the ability to respond appropriately to reasons provided in discourse develops in young children. In Study 1 (N = 58, Germany, 26 girls), 4- and 5-, but not 3-year-old children, differentiated good from bad reasons. In Study 2 (N = 131, Germany, 64 girls), 4- and 5-year-old children considered both the strength of evidence for their initial belief and the quality of socially provided reasons for an alternative view when deciding whether to change their minds. Study 3 (N = 80, the United States, 42 girls, preregistered) shows that 4- and 5-year-old children also consider meta-reasons (reasons about reasons) in their belief revision. These results suggest that by age 4, children possess key critical thinking capacities for participating in public discourse.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hanna Schleihauf
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA.,Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center-Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany.,Department for Primate Cognition, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.,Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany
| | | | - Julia Fischer
- Cognitive Ethology Laboratory, German Primate Center-Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Göttingen, Germany.,Department for Primate Cognition, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.,Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Jan M Engelmann
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
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Vorms M, Harris AJL, Topf S, Hahn U. Plausibility matters: A challenge to Gilbert's "Spinozan" account of belief formation. Cognition 2022; 220:104990. [PMID: 35026693 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104990] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/21/2019] [Revised: 11/17/2021] [Accepted: 12/07/2021] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
Most of the claims we encounter in real life can be assigned some degree of plausibility, even if they are new to us. On Gilbert's (1991) influential account of belief formation, whereby understanding a sentence implies representing it as true, all new propositions are initially accepted, before any assessment of their veracity. As a result, plausibility cannot have any role in initial belief formation on this account. In order to isolate belief formation experimentally, Gilbert, Krull, and Malone (1990) employed a dual-task design: if a secondary task disrupts participants' evaluation of novel claims presented to them, then the initial encoding should be all there is, and if that initial encoding consistently renders claims 'true' (even where participants were told in the learning phase that the claims they had seen were false), then Gilbert's account is confirmed. In this pre-registered study, we replicate one of Gilbert et al.'s (1990) seminal studies ("The Hopi Language Experiment") while additionally introducing a plausibility variable. Our results show that Gilbert's 'truth bias' does not hold for implausible statements - instead, initial encoding seemingly renders implausible statements 'false'. As alternative explanations of this finding that would be compatible with Gilbert's account can be ruled out, it questions Gilbert's account.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marion Vorms
- University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, IHPST 13 rue du Four, 75006 Paris, France.
| | | | - Sabine Topf
- University College London, London, United Kingdom.
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8
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Infants actively seek and transmit knowledge via communication. Behav Brain Sci 2021; 44:e142. [PMID: 34796804 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x20001405] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Supporting the central claim that knowledge representation is more basic than belief representation, we focus on the emerging evidence for preverbal infants' active and selective communication based on their representation of both knowledge and ignorance. We highlight infants' ontogenetically early deliberate information seeking and information transmission in the context of active social learning, arguing that these capacities are unique to humans.
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Boyer P. Deriving Features of Religions in the Wild : How Communication and Threat-Detection May Predict Spirits, Gods, Witches, and Shamans. HUMAN NATURE (HAWTHORNE, N.Y.) 2021; 32:557-581. [PMID: 34519967 DOI: 10.1007/s12110-021-09410-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/20/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
Religions "in the wild" are the varied set of religious activities that occurred before the emergence of organized religions with doctrines, or that persist at the margins of those organized traditions. These religious activities mostly focus on misfortune; on how to remedy specific cases of illness, accidents, failures; and on how to prevent them. I present a general model to account for the cross-cultural recurrence of these particular themes. The model is based on (independently established) features of human psychology-namely, (a) epistemic vigilance, the set of systems whereby we evaluate the quality of information and of sources of information, and (b) threat-detection psychology, the set of evolved systems geared at detecting potential danger in the environment. Given these two sets of systems, the dynamics of communication will favor particular types of messages about misfortune. This makes it possible to predict recurrent features of religious systems, such as the focus on nonphysical agents, the focus on particular cases rather than general aspects of misfortune, and the emergence of specialists. The model could illuminate not just why such representations are culturally successful, but also why people are motivated to formulate them in the first place.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pascal Boyer
- Departments of Anthropology and Psychology & Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, 63130, USA.
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10
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Hermansen TK, Ronfard S, Harris PL, Pons F, Zambrana IM. Young children update their trust in an informant's claim when experience tells them otherwise. J Exp Child Psychol 2021; 205:105063. [PMID: 33493996 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105063] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2020] [Revised: 11/12/2020] [Accepted: 11/29/2020] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Across two experiments, an adult informant presented 220 preschoolers (34-71 months of age) with either a correct claim or an incorrect claim about how to activate a music box by using one of two toy figures. Children were then prompted to explore the figures and to discover whether the informant's claim was correct or incorrect. Children who discovered the claim to be incorrect no longer endorsed it. Moreover, their predictions regarding a new figure's ability to activate the music box were clearly affected by the reliability of the informant's prior claim. Thus, children reassess an informant's incorrect claim about an object in light of later empirical evidence and transfer their conclusions regarding the validity of that claim to subsequent objects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tone K Hermansen
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, N-0373 Oslo, Norway; Norwegian Center of Child Behavioral Development, N-0306 Oslo, Norway.
| | - Samuel Ronfard
- Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada
| | - Paul L Harris
- Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
| | - Francisco Pons
- Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, N-0373 Oslo, Norway
| | - Imac M Zambrana
- Norwegian Center of Child Behavioral Development, N-0306 Oslo, Norway; Department of Special Needs Education, University of Oslo, N-0371 Oslo, Norway
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Crivello C, Poulin-Dubois D. Infants' Ability to Detect Emotional Incongruency: Deep or Shallow? INFANCY 2020; 24:480-500. [PMID: 32677254 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12277] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/10/2018] [Revised: 10/04/2018] [Accepted: 11/19/2018] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Infants can detect individuals who demonstrate emotions that are incongruent with an event and are less likely to trust them. However, the nature of the mechanisms underlying this selectivity is currently subject to controversy. The objective of this study was to examine whether infants' socio-cognitive and associative learning skills are linked to their selective trust. A total of 102 14-month-olds were exposed to a person who demonstrated congruent or incongruent emotional referencing (e.g., happy when looking inside an empty box), and were tested on their willingness to follow the emoter's gaze. Knowledge inference and associative learning tasks were also administered. It was hypothesized that infants would be less likely to trust the incongruent emoter and that this selectivity would be related to their associative learning skills, and not their socio-cognitive skills. The results revealed that infants were not only able to detect the incongruent emoter, but were subsequently less likely to follow her gaze toward an object invisible to them. More importantly, infants who demonstrated superior performance on the knowledge inference task, but not the associative learning task, were better able to detect the person's emotional incongruency. These findings provide additional support for the rich interpretation of infants' selective trust.
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12
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Liberman Z, Gerdin E, Kinzler KD, Shaw A. (Un)common knowledge: Children use social relationships to determine who knows what. Dev Sci 2020; 23:e12962. [PMID: 32159917 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12962] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/08/2019] [Revised: 12/16/2019] [Accepted: 02/27/2020] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Socially savvy individuals track what they know and what other people likely know, and they use this information to navigate the social world. We examine whether children expect people to have shared knowledge based on their social relationships (e.g., expecting friends to know each other's secrets, expecting members of the same cultural group to share cultural knowledge) and we compare children's reasoning about shared knowledge to their reasoning about common knowledge (e.g., the wrongness of moral violations). In three studies, we told 4- to 9-year-olds (N = 227) about what a child knew and asked who else knew the information: The child's friend (Studies 1-3), the child's schoolmate (Study 1), another child from the same national group (Study 2), or the child's sibling (Study 3). In all three studies, older children reliably used relationships to infer what other people knew. Moreover, with age, children increasingly considered both the type of knowledge and an individual's social relationships when reporting who knew what. The results provide support for a 'Selective Inferences' hypothesis and suggest that children's early attention to social relationships facilitates an understanding of how knowledge transfers - an otherwise challenging cognitive process.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zoe Liberman
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
| | - Emily Gerdin
- Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
| | | | - Alex Shaw
- Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
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Bazhydai M, Westermann G, Parise E. “I don't know but I know who to ask”: 12‐month‐olds actively seek information from knowledgeable adults. Dev Sci 2020; 23:e12938. [DOI: 10.1111/desc.12938] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/04/2019] [Revised: 01/05/2020] [Accepted: 01/12/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Marina Bazhydai
- Department of Psychology Fylde College Lancaster University Lancaster UK
| | - Gert Westermann
- Department of Psychology Fylde College Lancaster University Lancaster UK
| | - Eugenio Parise
- Department of Psychology Fylde College Lancaster University Lancaster UK
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15
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Mercier H, Majima Y, Claidière N, Léone J. Obstacles to the spread of unintuitive beliefs. EVOLUTIONARY HUMAN SCIENCES 2019; 1:e10. [PMID: 37588403 PMCID: PMC10427286 DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2019.10] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
Many socially significant beliefs are unintuitive, from the harmlessness of GMOs to the efficacy of vaccination, and they are acquired via deference toward individuals who are more confident, more competent or a majority. In the two-step flow model of communication, a first group of individuals acquires some beliefs through deference and then spreads these beliefs more broadly. Ideally, these individuals should be able to explain why they deferred to a given source - to provide arguments from expertise - and others should find these arguments convincing. We test these requirements using a perceptual task with participants from the US and Japan. In Experiment 1, participants were provided with first-hand evidence that they should defer to an expert, leading a majority of participants to adopt the expert's answer. However, when attempting to pass on this answer, only a minority of those participants used arguments from expertise. In Experiment 2, participants receive an argument from expertise describing the expert's competence, instead of witnessing it first-hand. This leads to a significant drop in deference compared with Experiment 1. These experiments highlight significant obstacles to the transmission of unintuitive beliefs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hugo Mercier
- Institut Jean Nicod, Département d’études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, PSL University, CNRS, ParisFrance
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304, CNRS and Université de Lyon, Bron, France
| | | | - Nicolas Claidière
- Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, LPC UMR 7290, 13331, Marseille, France
| | - Jessica Léone
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304, CNRS and Université de Lyon, Bron, France
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Salo VC, Reeb-Sutherland B, Frenkel TI, Bowman LC, Rowe ML. Does intention matter? Relations between parent pointing, infant pointing, and developing language ability. JOURNAL OF COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT 2019; 20:635-655. [PMID: 32089652 PMCID: PMC7034940 DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2019.1648266] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
Infants' pointing is associated with concurrent and later language development. The communicative intention behind the point-i.e., imperative versus declarative-can affect both the nature and strength of these associations, and is therefore a critical factor to consider. Parents' pointing is associated with both infant pointing and infant language; however, less work has examined the intent behind parents' points. We explore relations between parents' and infants' pointing at the level of communicative intention, and examine how pointing relates to concurrent and longitudinal infant language skills. In a sample of 52 mother-infant dyads, we measured mother and infant pointing at infant age 12-months, and infant expressive and receptive language at 12-, 18-, and 24-months. We found that mothers produced points with a variety of intentions, however we did not find relations between mother and infant pointing within the different communicative intentions. Replicating previous research, infant declarative pointing was related both concurrently and longitudinally to their language ability. Mothers' declarative pointing was related to their infants' concurrent language, while their imperative pointing was not. Further, there was an interaction between parent and infant declarative pointing, such that the positive relation between parents' declarative pointing and their infants' concurrent receptive language was present only for those infants who were also producing declarative points themselves. Findings suggest that parents' declarative pointing may support both their infants' early word learning and, perhaps, provides a model for their infant to begin using points as well. This study constitutes an important initial exploration of these relations.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Tahl I. Frenkel
- Ziama Arkin Infancy Institute, Baruch Ivcher School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya
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17
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Mercier H, Morin O. Majority rules: how good are we at aggregating convergent opinions? EVOLUTIONARY HUMAN SCIENCES 2019; 1:e6. [PMID: 37588400 PMCID: PMC10427311 DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2019.6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022] Open
Abstract
Mathematical models and simulations demonstrate the power of majority rules, i.e. following an opinion shared by a majority of group members. Majority opinion should be followed more when (a) the relative and absolute size of the majority grow, the members of the majority are (b) competent, and (c) benevolent, (d) the majority opinion conflicts less with our prior beliefs and (e) the members of the majority formed their opinions independently. We review the experimental literature bearing on these points. The few experiments bearing on (b) and (c) suggest that both factors are adequately taken into account. Many experiments show that (d) is also followed, with participants usually putting too much weight on their own opinion relative to that of the majority. Regarding factors (a) and (e), in contrast, the evidence is mixed: participants sometimes take into account optimally the absolute and relative size of the majority, as well as the presence of informational dependencies. In other circumstances, these factors are ignored. We suggest that an evolutionary framework can help make sense of these conflicting results by distinguishing between evolutionarily valid cues - that are readily taken into account - and non-evolutionarily valid cues - that are ignored by default.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hugo Mercier
- Institut Jean Nicod, PSL University, CNRS, ParisFrance
| | - Olivier Morin
- Max Planck institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany
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Palmquist CM, Fierro MG. The Right Stuff: Preschoolers Generalize Reliability Across Communicative Domains When Informants Show Semantic (Not Episodic) Knowledge. JOURNAL OF COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT 2018. [DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2018.1526174] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
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20
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Ronfard S, Zambrana IM, Hermansen TK, Kelemen D. Question-asking in childhood: A review of the literature and a framework for understanding its development. DEVELOPMENTAL REVIEW 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.dr.2018.05.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 60] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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21
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Schieler A, Koenig M, Buttelmann D. Fourteen-month-olds selectively search for and use information depending on the familiarity of the informant in both laboratory and home contexts. J Exp Child Psychol 2018; 174:112-129. [PMID: 29935470 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.05.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2017] [Revised: 04/08/2018] [Accepted: 05/16/2018] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Infants are selective in their learning from others. However, there is only very limited research on the possible factors that shape this selectivity, especially when it comes to the impact of infants' familiarity with the informant and the context. The current study investigated whether 14-month-olds preferred to receive and use information provided by an unfamiliar informant (experimenter) compared with a familiar informant (parent) and whether this pattern depended on the context (home vs. laboratory). We tested infants either in the laboratory (n = 67) or in their home (n = 70). When both informants presented a novel object with positive or negative emotions, we measured infants' gaze behavior as an indicator for information search. When infants acted on the novel object themselves, we measured their exploratory behavior as an indicator of information use. Results revealed no effect of context on infants' information search and use. Rather, we found that the familiarity of informant had distinct effects on infant attention and object exploration. Namely, infants looked longer at the unfamiliar informant across contexts, but they explored more when the familiar informant presented the object compared with when the unfamiliar informant did so. Thus, during information search, 14-month-olds paid most attention to an unfamiliar source of information. However, participants explored the objects more when they came from a familiar source than when they came from an unfamiliar one. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andy Schieler
- Institute for Education, Upbringing, and Care in Childhood | Rheinland-Pfalz, Department of Social Sciences, University of Applied Sciences Koblenz, D-56075 Koblenz, Germany.
| | - Melissa Koenig
- Institute of Child Development, College of Education and Human Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
| | - David Buttelmann
- Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Bern, CH-3012 Bern, Switzerland
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22
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Lane JD. Children's Belief in Counterintuitive and Counterperceptual Messages. CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES 2018. [DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12294] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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23
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Willingness to revise own testimony: 3- and 4-year-olds' selective trust in unexpected testimony from accurate and inaccurate informants. J Exp Child Psychol 2018; 173:1-15. [PMID: 29631087 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.03.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2017] [Revised: 03/11/2018] [Accepted: 03/17/2018] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
Prior work has shown that young children trust single accurate and inaccurate individuals to a similar extent in their endorsement of novel information. However, it remains unknown to what extent children trust a credible or noncredible individual when given information that is pitted against their own beliefs. The current study examined whether children, when given unexpected testimony that contradicted their initial beliefs but was not completely unbelievable, would selectively revise their beliefs depending on the informant's past history of accuracy. The participants (3- and 4-year-olds; N = 100) were familiarized with an informant who labeled a series of common objects either accurately or inaccurately. Following that, all children saw a picture of an ambiguous hybrid artifact that consisted of features of two typical common artifacts and were asked to identify the hybrid object with their own label. Subsequently, children watched the previously accurate or inaccurate informant give the same hybrid object a different but plausible label. Children expressed a greater tendency to override their initial judgments and endorse the unexpected testimony from a previously accurate informant than from someone who had consistently made naming errors. The findings provide novel understandings of the circumstances under which 3- and 4-year-old preschoolers may or may not rely on the informant's prior reliability in their selective learning.
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Abstract
In the current study, 24- to 27-month-old children (N = 37) used pointing gestures in a cooperative object choice task with either peer or adult partners. When indicating the location of a hidden toy, children pointed equally accurately for adult and peer partners but more often for adult partners. When choosing from one of three hiding places, children used adults' pointing to find a hidden toy significantly more often than they used peers'. In interaction with peers, children's choice behavior was at chance level. These results suggest that toddlers ascribe informative value to adults' but not peers' pointing gestures, and highlight the role of children's social expectations in their communicative development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gregor Kachel
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.,Faculty of Social and Educational Sciences, University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Germany
| | - Richard Moore
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.,Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
| | - Michael Tomasello
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.,Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, North Carolina, USA
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25
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Children's Developing Ideas About Knowledge and Its Acquisition. ADVANCES IN CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND BEHAVIOR 2018; 54:123-151. [PMID: 29455861 DOI: 10.1016/bs.acdb.2017.10.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
We review key aspects of young children's concept of knowledge. First, we discuss children's early insights into the way that information can be communicated from informant to recipient as well as their active search for information via questions. We then analyze the way that preschool children talk explicitly and cogently about knowledge and the presuppositions they make in doing so. We argue that all children, irrespective of culture and language, eventually arrive at the same fundamental conception of knowledge in the preschool years. Nevertheless, despite the universality of this basic conception, young children are likely to show considerable variation in their pattern of information seeking, depending on the conversational practices of their family and culture.
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26
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Castelain T, Bernard S, Mercier H. Evidence that Two-Year-Old Children are Sensitive to Information Presented in Arguments. INFANCY 2017. [DOI: 10.1111/infa.12202] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Thomas Castelain
- Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas; Universidad de Costa Rica
| | | | - Hugo Mercier
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives - Marc Jeannerod; CNRS
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27
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Gelman SA, Roberts SO. How language shapes the cultural inheritance of categories. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2017; 114:7900-7907. [PMID: 28739931 PMCID: PMC5544278 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1621073114] [Citation(s) in RCA: 58] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
It is widely recognized that language plays a key role in the transmission of human culture, but relatively little is known about the mechanisms by which language simultaneously encourages both cultural stability and cultural innovation. This paper examines this issue by focusing on the use of language to transmit categories, focusing on two universal devices: labels (e.g., shark, woman) and generics (e.g., "sharks attack swimmers"; "women are nurturing"). We propose that labels and generics each assume two key principles: norms and essentialism. The normative assumption permits transmission of category information with great fidelity, whereas essentialism invites innovation by means of an open-ended, placeholder structure. Additionally, we sketch out how labels and generics aid in conceptual alignment and the progressive "looping" between categories and cultural practices. In this way, human language is a technology that enhances and expands the categorization capacities that we share with other animals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Susan A Gelman
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
| | - Steven O Roberts
- Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
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28
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Mercier H. How Gullible are We? A Review of the Evidence from Psychology and Social Science. REVIEW OF GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY 2017. [DOI: 10.1037/gpr0000111] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
A long tradition of scholarship, from ancient Greece to Marxism or some contemporary social psychology, portrays humans as strongly gullible—wont to accept harmful messages by being unduly deferent. However, if humans are reasonably well adapted, they should not be strongly gullible: they should be vigilant toward communicated information. Evidence from experimental psychology reveals that humans are equipped with well-functioning mechanisms of epistemic vigilance. They check the plausibility of messages against their background beliefs, calibrate their trust as a function of the source's competence and benevolence, and critically evaluate arguments offered to them. Even if humans are equipped with well-functioning mechanisms of epistemic vigilance, an adaptive lag might render them gullible in the face of new challenges, from clever marketing to omnipresent propaganda. I review evidence from different cultural domains often taken as proof of strong gullibility: religion, demagoguery, propaganda, political campaigns, advertising, erroneous medical beliefs, and rumors. Converging evidence reveals that communication is much less influential than often believed—that religious proselytizing, propaganda, advertising, and so forth are generally not very effective at changing people's minds. Beliefs that lead to costly behavior are even less likely to be accepted. Finally, it is also argued that most cases of acceptance of misguided communicated information do not stem from undue deference, but from a fit between the communicated information and the audience's preexisting beliefs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hugo Mercier
- CNRS, Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod
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29
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Ronfard S, Lane JD. Preschoolers Continually Adjust Their Epistemic Trust Based on an Informant's Ongoing Accuracy. Child Dev 2017; 89:414-429. [DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12720] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
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30
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Lucas AJ, Burdett ERR, Burgess V, Wood LA, McGuigan N, Harris PL, Whiten A. The Development of Selective Copying: Children's Learning From an Expert Versus Their Mother. Child Dev 2016; 88:2026-2042. [PMID: 28032639 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12711] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
This study tested the prediction that, with age, children should rely less on familiarity and more on expertise in their selective social learning. Experiment 1 (N = 50) found that 5- to 6-year-olds copied the technique their mother used to extract a prize from a novel puzzle box, in preference to both a stranger and an established expert. This bias occurred despite children acknowledging the expert model's superior capability. Experiment 2 (N = 50) demonstrated a shift in 7- to 8-year-olds toward copying the expert. Children aged 9-10 years did not copy according to a model bias. The findings of a follow-up study (N = 30) confirmed that, instead, they prioritized their own-partially flawed-causal understanding of the puzzle box.
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31
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Harris PL, Ronfard S, Bartz D. Young children’s developing conception of knowledge and ignorance: work in progress. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2016. [DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2016.1190267] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/21/2022]
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32
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Breazeal C, Harris PL, DeSteno D, Kory Westlund JM, Dickens L, Jeong S. Young Children Treat Robots as Informants. Top Cogn Sci 2016; 8:481-91. [PMID: 26945492 DOI: 10.1111/tops.12192] [Citation(s) in RCA: 74] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/01/2013] [Revised: 08/15/2014] [Accepted: 10/01/2014] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Children ranging from 3 to 5 years were introduced to two anthropomorphic robots that provided them with information about unfamiliar animals. Children treated the robots as interlocutors. They supplied information to the robots and retained what the robots told them. Children also treated the robots as informants from whom they could seek information. Consistent with studies of children's early sensitivity to an interlocutor's non-verbal signals, children were especially attentive and receptive to whichever robot displayed the greater non-verbal contingency. Such selective information seeking is consistent with recent findings showing that although young children learn from others, they are selective with respect to the informants that they question or endorse.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | - Leah Dickens
- Department of Psychology, Northeastern University
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33
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Poulin-Dubois D, Brosseau-Liard P. The Developmental Origins of Selective Social Learning. CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2016; 25:60-64. [PMID: 27114644 PMCID: PMC4840934 DOI: 10.1177/0963721415613962] [Citation(s) in RCA: 56] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The study of children's social learning is a topic of central importance to our understanding of human development. Learning from others allows children to acquire information efficiently; however, not all information conveyed by others is accurate or worth learning. A large body of research conducted over the past decade has shown that preschoolers learn selectively from some individuals over others. In the present article we summarize our work and that of others on the developmental origins of selective social learning during infancy. The results of these studies indicate that infants are sensitive to a number of cues, including competence, age, and confidence, when deciding from whom to learn. We highlight the important implications of this research in improving our understanding of the cognitive and social skills necessary for selective learning, and point out promising avenues for future research.
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34
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35
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The active role played by human learners is key to understanding the efficacy of teaching in humans. Behav Brain Sci 2015; 38:e61. [DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x14000594] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
AbstractThe early developing capacity of human learners to seek out reliable informants, initiate pedagogical episodes, and monitor and redirect ongoing instruction is critical to understanding humans' remarkable capacity for cumulative culture.
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36
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Tummeltshammer KS, Wu R, Sobel DM, Kirkham NZ. Infants track the reliability of potential informants. Psychol Sci 2014; 25:1730-8. [PMID: 25022277 DOI: 10.1177/0956797614540178] [Citation(s) in RCA: 56] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Across two eye-tracking experiments, we showed that infants are sensitive to the statistical reliability of informative cues and selective in their use of information generated by such cues. We familiarized 8-month-olds with faces (Experiment 1) or arrows (Experiment 2) that cued the locations of animated animals with different degrees of reliability. The reliable cue always cued a box containing an animation, whereas the unreliable cue cued a box that contained an animation only 25% of the time. At test, infants searched longer in the boxes that were reliably cued, but did not search longer in the boxes that were unreliably cued. At generalization, when boxes were cued that never contained animations before, only infants in the face experiment followed the reliable cue. These results provide the first evidence that even young infants can track the reliability of potential informants and use this information judiciously to modify their future behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Rachel Wu
- Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester
| | - David M Sobel
- Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences, Brown University
| | - Natasha Z Kirkham
- Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London
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37
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Brosseau-Liard PE, Poulin-Dubois D. Sensitivity to Confidence Cues Increases during the Second Year of Life. INFANCY 2014. [DOI: 10.1111/infa.12056] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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38
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Beside the point: Mothers’ head nodding and shaking gestures during parent–child play. Infant Behav Dev 2014; 37:235-47. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.01.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2013] [Revised: 12/06/2013] [Accepted: 01/24/2014] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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