1,314 research outputs found

    Social learning mechanisms of knowledge exchange:Active communication, information seeking and information transmission in infancy

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    Children are active participants in the social knowledge exchange process, but little is known about how this exchange manifests in the first two years of life. This thesis explores active social learning strategies underlying both knowledge acquisition and knowledge transmission in infants aged 11-24 months. Comprising three experimental chapters, this thesis demonstrates infants’ sensitivity to the informative potential of their social partners and their epistemic value, their active and selective information seeking in situations of epistemic uncertainty, and their preferential information transmission based on a combination of social and non-social factors. Experimental Chapter 1 shows that 11-month-olds communicatively respond to their social partners following epistemic violation of expectation events and do so based on the social partner’s epistemic status. Experimental Chapter 2 demonstrates that 12-month-olds selectively solicit epistemic information from more knowledgeable social partners when facing a situation of referential uncertainty. Experimental Chapter 3 reports that 24-month-olds’ propensity for active information transmission to less knowledgeable social partners is modulated by information complexity but not the pedagogical context of information acquisition. Overall, this thesis contributes to the literature on cognitive development of social learning strategies for acquisition and transmission of knowledge, with a special emphasis on elucidating the ontogeny of active interrogative communication skills. The overarching conclusion stemming from this work highlights that far from being passive receptacles of knowledge, infants actively partake in the bi-directional process of social knowledge exchange

    “I don’t know but I know who to ask”:12-month-olds actively seek information from knowledgeable adults

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    Active social communication is an effective way for infants to learn about the world. Do pre‐verbal and pre‐pointing infants seek epistemic information from their social partners when motivated to obtain information they cannot discover independently? The present study investigated whether 12‐month‐olds (N = 30) selectively seek information from knowledgeable adults in situations of referential uncertainty. In a live experiment, infants were introduced to two unfamiliar adults, an Informant (reliably labeling objects) and a Non‐Informant (equally socially engaging, but ignorant about object labels). At test, infants were asked to make an impossible choice—locate a novel referent among two novel objects. When facing epistemic uncertainty—but not at other phases of the procedure—infants selectively referred to the Informant rather than the Non‐Informant. These results show that pre‐verbal infants use social referencing to actively and selectively seek information from social partners as part of their interrogative communicative toolkit. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/23dLPsa-fAY Research highlights Twelve‐month‐olds reliably assessed the informative potential of the available social partners and selectively queried the best source only when information was needed. Pre‐verbal infants used social referencing to actively and selectively seek information from social partners as part of their interrogative communicative toolkit. Social referencing served as a communicative means to seek epistemic rather than emotionally laden information in the situation of referential uncertainty. Results indicate that infants actively participate in the cultural interpersonal process of knowledge transmission, using basic non‐verbal communicative tools at their disposal

    Constructions of higher ability in two maintained and two independent schools

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    This research is an exploration of constructions of ability, especially `greater ability' within four Maintained and Independent case study schools in Scotland, from a variety of group perspectives. It seeks to illuminate the commonalties and differences between and within schools in individuals' implicit theories of ability and explores the possible implications of such constructs. An analysis of policy and political debate provided the starting point for this research. This led into the empirical work in four case study schools. Data were gathered from semi structured interviews with headteachers, principal teachers of English, Maths, Art and music, class teachers, parents and pupils. In addition, non-participant observation took place for each subject area and class. Multiple perspectives helped to create meaningful layers of perceptions of ability while also making it possible to analyse the complexity of values and beliefs within each class and school. The research found that there were distinctions to be made between schools in both sectors which reflected contrasting viewpoints, echoing `communitarian concerns' and the `culture of self interest' (Ball, 1997). However, the experiences, judgements and choices of individuals presented a more complex pattern in which contradictory beliefs could lead to experiences of dissonance in maintained schools and highlighted the importance of the negotiated ability constructs being brought to bear by individuals within institutions

    Inference, exploration and evaluation in early childhood

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    Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, 2012.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 107-116).Some of the biggest achievements in our lives are made even before we learn to tie our shoes. Within a few years of life, we master a language, acquire cultural norms, and develop naïve, yet rich, abstract, coherent theories about how the world works. How do young learners achieve such a feat? The goal of my thesis is to lay the groundwork for a unified account of a rational inference mechanism that underlies this remarkable human faculty to learn so much, so fast, from so little. The first study (Chapter 2) provides evidence that 16-month-old infants can use co-variation information among agents and objects to infer the cause of their failed actions; depending on their attribution, infants either approached another agent or another object. The second study (Chapter 3) shows that 15-month-old infants consider both the sample and the sampling process to rationally generalize properties of novel objects in the absence of behavioral cues. The results are consistent with the quantitative predictions of a Bayesian model, and suggest that infants' inferences are graded with respect to the probability of the sample. Finally, the third study (Chapter 4) shows that older children make sophisticated inferences about properties of agents; children evaluated an informant based on information he provided, and such evaluations affected how children learned from that informant. These studies provide evidence for rational, probabilistic, domain-general inference mechanisms in preverbal infants, and demonstrate how young learners seamlessly integrate data from different sources in ways that affect their exploration, generalization, and evaluation of both the physical and the social world.by Hyowon Gweon.Ph.D

    Why Don't Anthropologists Like Children?

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    Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66060/1/aa.2002.104.2.611.pd

    Infants’ selective social learning: the impact of informants’ knowledge states and familiarity on infants’ reception and use of information within the second year of life

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    Die Aufrechterhaltung und Weiterentwicklung der menschlichen Kultur fußt insbesondere auf der Weitergabe und Aneignung des Wissens über die Welt, das in Form von Informationen von einer Menschengeneration zur nächsten übertragen wird. In der vorliegenden Dissertation werden Aspekte der ontogenetischen Ursprünge dieses sozialen Informations- und Wissenstransfers untersucht. Hierfür wurden vier Studienreihen durchgeführt mit dem Ziel zu untersuchen, inwiefern sich die Vertrautheit und der Wissensstand von Informanten auf das selektive soziale Lernen von Kleinkindern innerhalb ihres zweiten Lebensjahres auswirken. In Studienreihe 1 (Studie 1a, n=137; Studie 1b, n=134) wurde überprüft, ob das Explorationsverhalten von 14-monatigen Kleinkindern von dem Wissensstand der Informanten hinsichtlich deren lokaler Expertise beeinflusst ist. In Studienreihe 2 wurde in zwei Längsschnittstudien (Studie 2a, n=40; Studie 2b, n=99) die selektive Nutzung des Wissensstandes von Informanten basierend auf deren visueller Perspektive in Versteckspielen bei Kindern im Alter von 14 und 19 bzw. 20 Monaten untersucht. In Studie 3 (n=99) wurde, ebenfalls in einem Versteckspielparadigma, die Präferenz von Kindern im Alter von 14 und 20 Monaten für vertraute vs. fremde Informanten im Längsschnittdesign untersucht. In Studienreihe 4 (Studie 4a, n =78; Studie 4b, n=78; Studie 4c, n =97) wurden unter Verwendung der zuvor erhobenen Daten die inter-individuellen Unterschiede im sozialen Lernen der Kleinkinder in den Blick genommen. Der Fokus lag hierbei auf dem Zusammenhang zwischen der Qualität der Eltern-Kind Interaktion und dem sozialen Lernen der Kleinkinder von vertrauten und fremden Informanten. Abschließend wird in der vorliegenden Dissertation ein Modell vorgestellt, welches eine Möglichkeit darstellt, die wesentlichen Ergebnisse zusammenzuführen und zu erklären. In diesem Modell ist die Fähigkeit, bei der Problemlösung in sozialen Lernsituationen auf relevante Informationen zu fokussieren, ein zentraler Aspekt. Die vorliegenden Studien liefern empirische Hinweise darauf, dass das Alter der Kinder und die Sensitivität ihrer Eltern Faktoren sein könnten, welche diese Fähigkeit formen. Dieses Modell gilt es in der zukünftigen Forschung zu überprüfen, um dadurch zu einem noch tieferen Verständnis für das soziale Lernen von Kleinkindern und ihren zugrunde liegenden Motivationen, mit denen sie bestimmte Informanten auswählen um sich aktiv Wissen über die Welt anzueignen, zu gelangen.The maintenance and further development of human culture is based in particular on the transmission and acquisition of knowledge about the world via the transference of information from one human generation to the next. In this dissertation, we investigate aspects of the ontogenetic origins of this social transfer of information and knowledge. To investigate whether certain core aspects of informants, in particular their knowledge states and familiarity, impact infants’ selective social learning, we conducted four study sets. In Study Set 1 (Study 1a, n=137; Study 1b, n=134), we investigated whether infants at 14 months of age were selective in their exploratory behavior due to informants’ knowledge states based on the informants’ local expertise. In Study Set 2 (Study 2a, n=40; Study 2b, n=99), which consisted of two longitudinal studies, we focused on 14- and 19/20-month-olds’ selective use of informants’ knowledge states based on their visual perspective in hiding-finding games. In the hiding-finding game of Study 3 (n=99), we longitudinally investigated the preferences of infants at 14 and 20 months of age for familiar vs. unfamiliar informants. In Study Set 4 (Study 4a, n =78; Study 4b, n=78; Study 4c, n =97), we focused on inter-individual differences by looking for correlations between the quality of parent-infant interaction and 14-month-olds’ social learning from familiar and unfamiliar informants. Finally, we present a model representing a possibility to incorporate and explain our main results. A core aspect in this model is infants’ ability to focus on relevant information when solving a problem in a social learning situation. We found empirical indications in our studies that infants’ age and the parents’ sensitivity might be factors shaping this ability. This model could be investigated in future research to develop a deeper understanding of infants’ social learning behavior and their underlying motivation when selecting informants to actively acquire knowledge about the world around them
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