The effect of disagreement on children's source memory performance

Methods and measures of source monitoring in children: A scoping review

Source monitoring (SM) refers to attributing sources of information. There are various methods for measuring SM in children. We searched the PubMed, PsycINFO, Embase, Web of Science and Cochrane Library databases from their inception to February 24, 2023, to summarize the methods and measures of SM in children, identifying 141 studies. The procedure for the SM tasks encompassed encoding, interval and testing. The encoding tasks were classified into ground-based activities (n = 67), computer-based experiments (n = 42) and mixed methods (n = 34). The testing approaches were categorized into old/new recognition and source discrimination, n-alternative forced-choice, yes/no questions and recall/direct questions. Among 10 commonly used indicators, source-correct, source-incorrect, discrimination score and source accuracy were recommended to present the SM function. We also discussed the advantages and disadvantages of different SM methods in children, providing a reference for researchers to design and select SM measurements that meet their research objectives.

Disagreement reduces overconfidence and prompts exploration in young children

Can the experience of disagreement lead young children to reason in more sophisticated ways? Across two preregistered studies, four- to six-year-old US children (N = 136, 50% female, mixed ethnicities, data collected 2020-2022) experienced either a disagreement or an agreement with a confederate about a causal mechanism after being presented with ambiguous evidence. We measured (1) children's confidence in their belief before and after the (dis)agreement, and (2) how long children searched for information about the correct answer. Disagreement, especially with an expert (Experiment 2), reduced overconfidence and prompted children to search longer for information, compared to agreement. Together, our findings suggest possibilities for interventions aimed at fostering humility and learning across the lifespan.

How to Become a Memory: The Individual and Collective Aspects of Mnemicity

Human adults distinguish their mental event simulations along various dimensions-most prominently according to their "mnemicity": we track whether these simulations are outcomes of past personal experiences or not (i.e., whether we are "remembering" or "imagining"). This distinction between memory and imagination is commonly thought to reflect a deep architectural distinction in the mind. Against this idea, I argue that mnemicity is not based on a fundamentalstructural difference between memories and imaginations but is instead the result of metacognitive attribution and social construction. On this attributional view, mnemicity is likely a uniquely human capacity that both serves collective functions and has been shaped by collective norms. First, on the individual level, mnemicity attribution is an outcome of metacognitive learning: it relies on acquired interpretations of the phenomenal features of mental event simulations. Such interpretations are in part acquired through interactive reminiscing with other community members. Further, how the distinction between memory and imagination is drawn is likely sensitive to cultural norms about what remembering is, when it is appropriate to claim to remember, what can be remembered, and what remembering entails. As a result, how individuals determine whether they remember or imagine is bound to be deeply enculturated. Second, mnemicity attribution solves an important collective challenge: who to grant epistemic authority about the past. Solving this challenge is important because-for humans-the past represents not just an opportunity to learn about the future but to coordinate present social realities. How a community determines such social realities both draws on individuals' remembering and in turn shapes when, what, and how individuals remember.

The Collaborative Nature of Testimonial Learning

Children's testimonial learning often occurs in epistemic collaborations with others. In this paper, we will discuss ways in which cultural learning emerges in social and interpersonal contexts, and is intrinsically supported and guided by children's collaborative capacities. Much work in cultural learning has focused on children's examination of speaker and model characteristics, but more recent research has investigated the interactive aspects of testimonial exchanges. We will review evidence that children (1) participate in the interpersonal commitments that are shared in testimonial transactions by way of direct address and epistemic buck passing, (2) participate in social groups that affect their selective learning in nuanced ways, and (3) may detect epistemic harms by listeners who refuse to believe sincere and accurate speakers. Implications for conceptualizing children's testimonial learning as an interactive mechanism of collaboration will be discussed.

Testimony and observation of statistical evidence interact in adults' and children's category-based induction

Hearing generic or other kind-relevant claims can influence the use of information from direct observations in category learning. In the current study, we ask how both adults and children integrate their observations with testimony when learning about the causal property of a novel category. Participants were randomly assigned to hear one of four types of testimony: generic, quantified "all", specific, or only labels. In Study 1, adults (N = 1249) then observed that some proportion of objects (10%-100%) possessed a causal property. In Study 2, children (N = 123, Mage = 5.06 years, SD = 0.61 years, range 4.01-5.99 years) observed a sample where 30% of the objects had the causal property. Generic and quantified "all" claims led both adults and children to generalize the causal property beyond what was observed. Adults and children diverged, however, in their overall trust in testimony that could be verified by observations: adults were more skeptical of inaccurate quantified claims, whereas children were more accepting. Additional memory probes suggest that children's trust in unverified claims may have been due to misremembering what they saw in favor of what they heard. The current findings demonstrate that both child and adult learners integrate information from both sources, offering insights into the mechanisms by which language frames first-hand experience.