Children's working understanding of knowledge sources : confidence in knowledge gained from testimony

In three experiments children aged between 3 and 5 years (N = 38; 52; 94; mean ages 3;7 to 5;2) indicated their confidence in their knowledge of the identity of a hidden toy. With the exception of some 3-year-olds, children revealed working understanding of their knowledge source by showing high confidence when they had seen or felt the toy, and lower confidence when they had been told its identity by an apparently well-informed speaker, especially when the speaker subsequently doubted the adequacy of his access to the toy. After a 2-minute delay, 3-to 4- year olds, unlike 4- to 5-year-olds, failed to see the implications of the speaker’s doubt about his access

The role of timing and prototypical causality on how preschoolers fast-map novel verb meanings

In controlled contexts, young children find it more difficult to learn novel words for actions than words for objects: Imai et al. (2008) found that English-speaking three-year-olds mistakenly choose a novel object as a referent for a novel verb about 42% of the time despite hearing the verb in a transitive sentence. The current two studies investigated whether English three- and five-year-old children would find resultative actions easier (since they are prototypically causative) than the non-resultative, durative event types used in Imai et al.’s studies. The reverse was true. Furthermore, if the novel verbs were taught on completion of the action, this did not improve performance, which contrasts with previous findings (e.g. Tomasello & Kruger, 1992). Our resultative actions were punctual, change-of-location events which may be less visually salient than the non-resulative, durative actions. Visual salience may play a greater role than does degree of action causality in the relative ease of verb learning even at three years

The Early Social Cognition Inventory (ESCI): an examination of its psychometric properties from birth to 47 months

Social cognition refers to a broad range of cognitive processes and skills that allow individuals to interact with and understand others, including a variety of skills from infancy through preschool and beyond, e.g., joint attention, imitation, and belief understanding. However, no measures examine socio-cognitive development from birth through preschool. Current test batteries and parent-report measures focus either on infancy, or toddlerhood through preschool (and beyond). We report six studies in which we developed and tested a new 21-item parent-report measure of social cognition targeting 0–47 months: the Early Social Cognition Inventory (ESCI). Study 1 (N = 295) revealed the ESCI has excellent internal reliability, and a two-factor structure capturing social cognition and age. Study 2 (N = 605) also showed excellent internal reliability and confirmed the two-factor structure. Study 3 (N = 84) found a medium correlation between the ESCI and a researcher-administered social cognition task battery. Study 4 (N = 46) found strong 1-month test–retest reliability. Study 5 found longitudinal stability (6 months: N = 140; 12 months: N = 39), and inter-observer reliability between parents (N = 36) was good, and children’s scores increased significantly over 6 and 12 months. Study 6 showed the ESCI was internally reliable within countries (Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Trinidad and Tobago); parent ethnicity; parent education; and age groups from 4–39 months. ESCI scores positively correlated with household income (UK); children with siblings had higher scores; and Australian parents reported lower scores than American, British, and Canadian parents

Does the majority always know best? Young children's flexible trust in majority opinion

Copying the majority is generally an adaptive social learning strategy but the majority does not always know best. Previous work has demonstrated young children's selective uptake of information from a consensus over a lone dissenter. The current study examined children's flexibility in following the majority: do they overextend their reliance on this heuristic to situations where the dissenting individual has privileged knowledge and should be trusted instead? Four- to six- year-olds (N = 103) heard conflicting claims about the identity of hidden drawings from a majority and a dissenter in two between-subject conditions: in one, the dissenter had privileged knowledge over the majority (he drew the pictures); in the other he did not (they were drawn by an absent third party). Overall, children were less likely to trust the majority in the Privileged Dissenter condition. Moreover, 5- and 6- year-olds made majority-based inferences when the dissenter had no privileged knowledge but systematically endorsed the dissenter when he drew the pictures. The current findings suggest that by 5 years, children are able to make an epistemic-based judgment to decide whether or not to follow the majority rather than automatically following the most common view

Preschoolers' Perspective Taking in Word Learning: Do They Blindly Follow Eye Gaze?

When learning new words, do children use a speaker’s eye gaze because it reveals referential intent? We conducted two experiments that addressed this question. In Experiment 1, the experimenter left while two novel objects were placed where the child could see both, but the experimenter would be able to see only one. The experimenter returned, looked directly at the mutually visible object, and said either, "There’s the [novel word]!" or "Where’s the [novel word]?" Two- through 4-year-olds selected the target of the speaker’s gaze more often on there trials than on where trials, although only the older children identified the referent correctly at above-chance levels on trials of both types. In Experiment 2, the experimenter placed a novel object where only the child could see it and left while the second object was similarly hidden. When she returned and asked, ‘‘Where’s the [novel word]?’’ 2- through 4-year-olds chose the second object at above chance levels. Preschoolers do not blindly follow gaze, but consider the linguistic and pragmatic contextwhen learning a new word

Identifying unreliable informants : do children excuse past inaccuracies

In three experiments (N = 123; 148; 28), children observed a video in which two speakers offered alternative labels for unfamiliar objects. In Experiment 1, 3- to 5-year-olds endorsed the label given by a speaker who had previously labeled familiar objects accurately, rather than that given by a speaker with a history of inaccurate labeling, even when the inaccurate speaker erred only while blindfolded. In Experiments 2 and 3, 3- to 7-year-olds showed no preference for the label given by a previously inaccurate but blindfolded speaker, over that given by a second inaccurate speaker with no obvious excuse for erring. Children based their endorsements on speakers’ history of accuracy or inaccuracy irrespective of the speakers’ information access at the time, raising doubts that children made mentalistic interpretations of speakers’ inaccuracy

Children’s selective learning from others

Psychological research into children’s sensitivity to testimony has primarily focused on their ability to judge the likely reliability of speakers. However, verbal testimony is only one means by which children learn from others. We review recent research exploring children’s early social referencing and imitation, as well as their sensitivity to speakers’ knowledge, beliefs, and biases, to argue that children treat information and informants with reasonable scepticism. As children’s understanding of mental states develops, they become ever more able to critically evaluate whether to believe new information