Specifying links between infants' theory of mind, associative learning, and selective trust

Do preschoolers trust a competent robot pointer?

How young children learn from different informants has been widely studied. However, most studies investigate how children learn verbally conveyed information. Furthermore, most studies investigate how children learn from humans. This study sought to investigate how 3-year-old children learn from, and come to trust, a competent robot versus an incompetent human when competency is established using a pointing paradigm. During an induction phase, a robot informant pointed at a toy inside a transparent box, whereas a human pointed at an empty box. During the test phase, both agents pointed at opaque boxes. We found that young children asked the robot for help to locate a hidden toy more than the human (ask questions) and correctly identified the robot to be accurate (judgment questions). However, children equally endorsed the locations pointed at by both the robot and the human (endorse questions). This suggests that 3-year-olds are sensitive to the epistemic characteristics of the informant even when its displayed social properties are minimal.

After one year in university; a robust decrease in autistic traits reporting among autistic students

Background

Previous research on autistic students enrolled in university support programs has reported moderate improvement in anxiety/depression or adaptive behavior. However, alterations in autistic traits have not been examined.

Methods

This longitudinal study evaluated changes in university students' autistic trait and state/trait anxiety levels. Participants were 24 neurotypically developed (ND) students with high levels of social anxiety symptoms (High SA), 30 ND students with low levels of SA symptoms (Low SA), and 41 autistic students (the primary focus of this study) residing with an ND peer student mentor as part of participating in the university's integration support program. Autism spectrum quotient [AQ and State Trait Anxiety Inventory STAI] data were collected during the first semester of two consecutive academic years (T1, T2), as well as baseline (T1) levels of social anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

Results

Significant interaction between group and time was observed, denoting a sharp decrease (2.9 SD) from T1 to T2 in the overall autistic trait level among the autistic group (AQ "attention switching" subscale demonstrating the most robust decrease), and a moderate decrease (0.5 SD) among the high SA group. Only for the autistic students were more compulsive symptoms at T1 associated with a lesser decrease in AQ scores (T1-T2), which in turn was negatively correlated with their T1 year-end grade point average.

Conclusion

The findings suggest that attending post-secondary education (while partaking in a support/transition program) is followed by a profound change of the individual's subjective experience of autism, characterized by a sharp decline in the level of autistic traits, particularly attention switching. This change is independent of alterations in well-being indices, such as anxiety, that are known to characterize students attending university.

Why is she scratching her head? Children's understanding of others' metacognitive gestures as an indicator of learning

Successful collaborative learning is supported by the coordination of one's own learning with the learning performance of others. One type of cues that guides the understanding of others' learning performances is their metacognitive gestures. In the current study, we investigated (a) whether 3- to 7-year-old children rely on others' gestures to judge someone else's learning progress and likely learning performance (Experiment 1; N = 76), (b) whether metacognitive gesture understanding depends on cognitive and theory of mind skills (Experiment 2; N = 59), and (c) whether this knowledge would influence children's future selective learning and selective teaching choices (Experiment 3; N = 96). Results of Experiment 1 showed that by 3 years of age children can interpret gestures as an indicator of a person's future performance and that this capacity improves with age, with older children differentiating better between the types of gestures. Experiment 2 revealed that the understanding of metacognitive gestures was not modulated by either nonverbal cognitive capacities or theory of mind skills. Experiment 3 showed a developmental difference in that 5- and 7-year-olds, like adults, consistently selected that successful learners should help someone to learn and that ineffective learners should receive help, whereas 3-year-olds selected learners at chance level. Overall, the results support views that children acquire an understanding of metacognitive gestures early in life and that the translation of this knowledge into selective teaching and selective learning choices improves with age.