Children’s trust in previously inaccurate informants who were well- or poorly- informed : when past errors can be excused

Past research demonstrates that children learn from a previously accurate speaker rather than from a previously inaccurate one. This study shows that children do not necessarily treat a previously inaccurate speaker as unreliable. Rather, they appropriately excuse past inaccuracy arising from the speaker’s limited information access. Children (N = 67) aged 3, 4 and 5 years aimed to identify a hidden toy in collaboration with a puppet as informant. When the puppet had previously been inaccurate despite having full information, children tended to ignore what they were told and guess for themselves: They treated the puppet as unreliable in the longer term. However children more frequently believed a currently well-informed puppet whose past inaccuracies arose legitimately from inadequate information access

When do children learn from unreliable speakers?

Children do not necessarily disbelieve a speaker with a history of inaccuracy; they take into account reasons for errors. Three- to 5 year-olds (N = 97) aimed to identify a hidden target in collaboration with a puppet. The puppet’s history of inaccuracy arose either from false beliefs, or occurred despite his being fully informed. On a subsequent test trial, children’s realistic expectation about the target was contradicted by the puppet who was fully informed. Children were more likely to revise their belief in line with the puppet’s assertion when his previous errors were due to false beliefs. Children who explained this puppet’s prior inaccuracy in terms of false belief were more likely to believe the puppet than those who did not. As children’s understanding of the mind advances, they increasingly balance the risk of learning falsehoods from unreliable speakers against that of rejecting truths from speakers who made excusable errors

Developing a parent report measure of social cognition from birth to 3 years

While social cognition has traditionally been measured with lab tasks (e.g., Carpenter, et al., 1998), recently, Tahiroglu et al (2014) have developed the Children’s Social Understanding Scale for 3- to 5-year-olds. They found parents reliably report socio-cognitive development. To examine earlier socio-cognitive development, we have created a parent-report measure of social cognition from birth to 3 years, the Early Social Cognition Scale (ESCS). In study 1 (exploratory, N=230) parents of 0- to 47-month-olds completed the 23-question ESCS online. Questions determined children’s level of social cognition, e.g., “Does your child follow where you point to look at the same things as you?” and, “Does your child understand what it means for others to make mistakes? E.g., that they dropped a plate by accident.” One item did not correlate with the total score, “Does your child like to look at faces?” since it was at ceiling, so was dropped. The remaining 22 items correlated with the total score with Spearman’s rho>.3, p<.05. Scale reliability was excellent, KR20=0.95. The ESCS correlated strongly with age, Pearson’s r=0.86, p<.001. In study 2 (confirmatory, N=228), scale reliability was again excellent, KR20=0.93, and again, the ESCS correlated strongly with age, Pearson’s r=0.82, p<.001. A subset of children from the above studies were tested for test-retest reliability. Children (N=48) had similar scores 6 months later, Pearson’s r=0.56, p<.001, df=45, controlling for age. Children (N=24) also had similar scores 12 months later, Pearson’s r=0.66, p=.001, df=21, controlling for age. A subset of children from the above studies were tested for inter-observer agreement by having both parents separately complete the ESCS. Both parents gave similar scores to children (N=32), Pearson’s r=0.85, p<.001, df=29, controlling for age. The final stage will involve comparing the ESCS to lab tasks for 84 children

The Early Social Cognition Inventory (ESCI):An Examination of its Psychometric Properties from Birth to 47 Months

Elena Hoicka, Burcu Soy Telli, and Eloise Prouten designed the research, and collected and coded the data. Elena Hoicka was the primary author, and analysed the data. Burcu Soy Telli wrote parts of the Method section, and Merideth Gattis wrote parts of the Introduction. Burcu Soy Telli, Merideth Gattis, George Leckie, William J. Browne, and Erika Nurmsoo edited and gave feedback on the manuscript, both in terms of content and analyses.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.University of Sheffield Women Academic Returners Program, University of Bristol Returning Carers Scheme Grant, Ministry of Education in Turkey

Preschool children reason about artists' mental states when naming drawings

This research investigated how 3- to 5-year-old children understand drawings based on mental states, namely knowledge and belief. Results showed that most 3-year-olds understood an artist's knowledge state. Children aged between four and five years showed understanding of false belief. The drawing did not facilitate children's understanding of the artist's mental state, as children were equally successful when naming a drawing or answering a question about the artist's mental state. These results imply that children are able to understand different mental states simultaneously

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

Best friends: children use mutual gaze to identify friendships in others

This study examined children’s ability to use mutual eye gaze as a cue to friendships in others. In Experiment 1, following a discussion about friendship, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds were shown animations in which three cartoon children looked at one another, and were told that one target character had a best friend. Although all age groups accurately detected the mutual gaze between the target and another character, only 5- and 6-year-olds used this cue to infer friendship. Experiment 2 replicated the effect with 5- and 6-year-olds when the target character was not explicitly identified. Finally, in Experiment 3, where the attribution of friendship could only be based on synchronized mutual gaze, 6-year-olds made this attribution, while 4- and 5-year-olds did not. Children occasionally referred to mutual eye gaze when asked to justify their responses in Experiments 2 and 3, but it was only by the age of 6 that reference to these cues correlated with the use of mutual gaze in judgements of affiliation. Although younger children detected mutual gaze, it was not until 6 years of age that children reliably detected and justified mutual gaze as a cue to friendship