Young Children’s Changing Reactions to Counterintuitive Claims

This dissertation examines young children’s acceptance of, memory for, and doubts about counterintuitive claims. In Study 1, children aged 3- to 5-years in the United States and China were asked to categorize hybrids whose perceptual features originated from two different animals or two different objects (75% from one and 25% from the other). At first, most children categorized the hybrids in terms of their predominant perceptual features. However, after hearing counter-perceptual categorizations by an adult, children categorized fewer hybrids in terms of their predominant features. When retested 1-to 2-weeks later, the adult’s earlier counter-intuitive categorizations still impacted children’s categorizations but less strongly. In Study 2, American children aged 3- to 6-years were presented with three different-sized Russian dolls and asked to say which doll was the heaviest. Most children pointed to the biggest doll. They were then told that the smallest doll was the heaviest and that the biggest was the lightest, a claim that was false. Most children subsequently endorsed this claim. Nevertheless, when the experimenter left the room, older children were likely to check it by lifting the biggest and smallest dolls. Younger children rarely conducted such checks. In Study 3, Chinese preschool and elementary school children were presented with five different-sized Russian dolls and asked to indicate the heaviest doll. Half of the children then heard a false, counter-intuitive claim (i.e., smallest = heaviest). The remaining children heard a claim confirming their intuitions (i.e., biggest = heaviest). Again, most children endorsed the experimenter’s claim even when it was counter-intuitive. During the experimenter’s subsequent absence, elementary school children explored the dolls more if they had received counter-intuitive rather than confirming testimony. Preschool children rarely explored no matter what testimony they had received. On the experimenter’s return, children who had explored the dolls were likely to reject her counter-intuitive claim. Thus, counterintuitive claims can overturn children’s beliefs but their influence fades over time and is moderated by children’s opportunities to search for empirical evidence. Across two cultures, older children were more inclined than younger children to use opportunities to seek empirical evidence to check counterintuitive claims

Preschoolers in Belarus and Turkey accept an adult’s counter-intuitive claim and do not spontaneously seek evidence to test that claim

When presented with a claim that contradicts their intuitions, do children seize opportunities to empirically verify such claims or do they simply acquiesce to what they have been told? To answer this question, we conducted a replication of Ronfard, Chen, and Harris (2018, conducted in the People’s Republic of China) in two countries with distinct religious and political histories (Study 1: Belarus, N = 74; Study 2: Turkey, N = 79). Preschool children were presented with five, different-sized Russian dolls and asked to indicate the heaviest doll. All children selected the biggest doll. Half of the children then heard a (false) claim (i.e., that the smallest doll was the heaviest), contradicting their initial intuition. The remaining children heard a (true) claim (i.e., that the biggest doll was the heaviest), confirming their initial intuition. Belarusian and Turkish preschoolers typically endorsed the experimenter’s claim no matter whether it had contradicted or confirmed their initial intuition. Next, the experimenter left the room, giving children an opportunity to check the experimenter’s claim by picking up the relevant dolls. Belarusian and Turkish preschoolers rarely explored the dolls, regardless of the type of testimony they received and continued to endorse the counter-intuitive testimony they received. Furthermore, in Study 2, Turkish preschoolers continued to endorse smallest = heaviest even when doing so could have cost them a large reward. In sum, across two different cultural contexts, preschool children endorsed a counter-intuitive claim and did not spontaneously seek evidence to test it. These results confirm and extend those of Ronfard et al. (2018)

A cognitive developmental approach is essential to understanding cumulative technological culture

Osiurak and Reynaud argue that children are not a good methodological choice to examine cumulative technological culture. However, the manuscript ignores other current work that suggests that young children do display some aspects of creative problem-solving. We argue that using multiple methodologies and examining how technical reasoning develops in children will provide crucial support for a cognitive approach to CTC. Main text: Osiurak and Reynaud (n.d.) claim that children do not possess the technological expertise required to innovate new solutions to problems and conclude it is debatable whether children are a good 'methodological choice' to examine CTC (section 3.4). Indeed, children do struggle with tasks requiring creative problem-solving and we agree that sufficient technical-reasoning is required for innovation. However, the manuscript ignores a growing body of research that suggests some early innovative capacities and does not give adequate discussion to the early development of technical reasoning skills. Indeed, based on recent developmental evidence, we argue that young children display some aspects of creative problem solving under limited conditions. Understanding these constraints on innovation in early childhood is key to understanding what is developing

Flat vs. Expressive Storytelling: Young Children’s Learning and Retention of a Social Robot’s Narrative

Prior research with preschool children has established that dialogic or active book reading is an effective method for expanding young children’s vocabulary. In this exploratory study, we asked whether similar benefits are observed when a robot engages in dialogic reading with preschoolers. Given the established effectiveness of active reading, we also asked whether this effectiveness was critically dependent on the expressive characteristics of the robot. For approximately half the children, the robot’s active reading was expressive; the robot’s voice included a wide range of intonation and emotion (Expressive). For the remaining children, the robot read and conversed with a flat voice, which sounded similar to a classic text-to-speech engine and had little dynamic range (Flat). The robot’s movements were kept constant across conditions. We performed a verification study using Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) to confirm that the Expressive robot was viewed as significantly more expressive, more emotional, and less passive than the Flat robot. We invited 45 preschoolers with an average age of 5 years who were either English Language Learners (ELL), bilingual, or native English speakers to engage in the reading task with the robot. The robot narrated a story from a picture book, using active reading techniques and including a set of target vocabulary words in the narration. Children were post-tested on the vocabulary words and were also asked to retell the story to a puppet. A subset of 34 children performed a second story retelling 4–6 weeks later. Children reported liking and learning from the robot a similar amount in the Expressive and Flat conditions. However, as compared to children in the Flat condition, children in the Expressive condition were more concentrated and engaged as indexed by their facial expressions; they emulated the robot’s story more in their story retells; and they told longer stories during their delayed retelling. Furthermore, children who responded to the robot’s active reading questions were more likely to correctly identify the target vocabulary words in the Expressive condition than in the Flat condition. Taken together, these results suggest that children may benefit more from the expressive robot than from the flat robot

A Diverse and Flexible Teaching Toolkit Facilitates the Human Capacity for Cumulative Culture

© 2017, The Author(s). Human culture is uniquely complex compared to other species. This complexity stems from the accumulation of culture over time through high- and low-fidelity transmission and innovation. One possible reason for why humans retain and create culture, is our ability to modulate teaching strategies in order to foster learning and innovation. We argue that teaching is more diverse, flexible, and complex in humans than in other species. This particular characteristic of human teaching rather than teaching itself is one of the reasons for human’s incredible capacity for cumulative culture. That is, humans unlike other species can signal to learners whether the information they are teaching can or cannot be modified. As a result teaching in humans can be used to support high or low fidelity transmission, innovation, and ultimately, cumulative culture

View to the U: An eye on UTM research

This is an audio recording from the podcast series "View to the U: An eye on UTM research".In this first sequestered episode, Psychology Professor Samuel Ronfard talks about his research and also about how to best chat with young kids about things like germs, global pandemics, and physical distancing. We also talk about some of the things he’s doing during this time of self-isolation, and how he’s balancing work at home while also having a toddler toddling about. Samuel Ronfard is an Assistant Professor in UTM’s Department of Psychology and the Director of The Childhood Learning and Development Lab. His work explores how children learn about, come to believe in, and come to understand ideas and concepts that defy their everyday experiences and their intuitive theories about how the world works

Older children verify adult claims because they are skeptical of those claims (Study 1)

This project examines why preschool children failed to seek empirical evidence following a surprising claim in prior work (see Ronfard, Chen, & Harris, 2017

View to the U: An eye on UTM research

This is an audio recording from the podcast series "View to the U: An eye on UTM research".In this first sequestered episode, Psychology Professor Samuel Ronfard talks about his research and also about how to best chat with young kids about things like germs, global pandemics, and physical distancing. We also talk about some of the things he’s doing during this time of self-isolation, and how he’s balancing work at home while also having a toddler toddling about. Samuel Ronfard is an Assistant Professor in UTM’s Department of Psychology and the Director of The Childhood Learning and Development Lab. His work explores how children learn about, come to believe in, and come to understand ideas and concepts that defy their everyday experiences and their intuitive theories about how the world works