46 research outputs found
Social learning mechanisms of knowledge exchange:Active communication, information seeking and information transmission in infancy
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 infantsâ 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 partnerâs 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-oldsâ 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
Can bifocal stance theory explain childrenâs selectivity in active information transmission?
To shed light on the key premise of the bifocal stance theory (BST) that social learners flexibly take instrumental and ritual stances, we focus on developmental origins of child-led information transmission, or teaching, as a core social learning strategy. We highlight children's emerging selectivity in information transmission influenced by epistemic and social factors and call for systematic investigation of proposed stance-taking
Preschoolers in Belarus and Turkey accept an adultâs 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 Peopleâs 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 experimenterâs 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 experimenterâs 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)
âI donât know but I know who to askâ:12-month-olds actively seek information from knowledgeable adults
Active social communication is an effective way for infants to learn about the world. Do preâverbal and preâpointing infants seek epistemic information from their social partners when motivated to obtain information they cannot discover independently? The present study investigated whether 12âmonthâolds (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 NonâInformant (equally socially engaging, but ignorant about object labels). At test, infants were asked to make an impossible choiceâlocate a novel referent among two novel objects. When facing epistemic uncertaintyâbut not at other phases of the procedureâinfants selectively referred to the Informant rather than the NonâInformant. These results show that preâverbal 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 Twelveâmonthâolds reliably assessed the informative potential of the available social partners and selectively queried the best source only when information was needed. Preâverbal 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 nonâverbal communicative tools at their disposal
Breadth of emotion vocabulary in early adolescence
Studies of emotion vocabulary and understanding typically focus on early childhood. Yet, emotion abilities continue to develop into adolescence, making it an important and underinvestigated area of research. This study presents evidence that adolescentsâ emotion vocabulary undergoes active development, becomes more broad and sophisticated, varies by gender, and is not captured adequately by recognition-based approaches. Adolescents were asked to generate emotion words for five emotion categoriesâhappy, relaxed, angry, sad, and nervous. Responses included emotion words (e.g., joyous) and nonemotion terms such as metaphors (e.g., boiling), social experiences (e.g., underappreciated), and personality traits (e.g., shy). Girls generated significantly more responses than boys. Older adolescents generated significantly more emotion words (e.g., describing someone who is happy as joyful, exuberant or ecstatic), while younger adolescents produced more nonemotion responses (e.g., describing someone who is happy as smiley, friendly, or full of life). Studentsâ grade, total number of responses they produced, and performance on the recognition test of emotion understanding predicted their emotion vocabulary
The Infant Curiosity Questionnaire: the first measure of General Infant Curiosity
There are numerous theoretical frameworks attempting to define and explain curiosity, such as the knowledge gap theory (Loewenstein, 1994), the interest-deprivation theory (Litman & Jimerson, 2004), as well as the early, influential specifications of Berlyne (e.g. epistemic vs. perceptual curiosity and specific vs. diverse exploration, 1960). However, the concept remains elusive with open questions especially regarding its emergence and mechanisms in infancy. While there are several self-report measures for adult and some for child curiosity relating to the aforementioned theories, there has not been any measure developed yet for infants. Here, we present a newly developed caregiver-report questionnaire measuring infantsâ general curiosity across a target age range of 5 to 24 months. Rather than constraining behavioral expressions of curiosity to a specific theoretical framework, we instead adopt a broad definition of infant curiosity as a keen desire or tendency to actively explore oneâs immediate surroundings. We developed 36 items reflecting various behaviors and developing skills with which infants can actively explore and interact with their environment from birth onwards. Caregivers are asked to evaluate how well each item reflects their childâs typical behavior on a Likert-scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) with an option of ânot applicable (NA)â for behaviours the child does not display (perhaps because they are too young). An item applicable for younger infants is for instance âWhen my child encounters an object, they are likely to put it in their mouth for further inspection (e.g., to see what it feels or tastes like).â Other items referring to skills such as interacting socially (e.g., âWhen reading a picture book together, my child directs me (e.g., by pointing) towards what they want to know more about.â) may only become applicable later on. The survey was piloted on N = 22 participants of a constrained age group (Mage = 11.53, 41% female). The measure showed good internal consistency (Cronbachâs alpha = .85). Each item created variance but had, as expected, a positively skewed response load. Furthermore, an item directly asking caregivers about how curious they perceived their child to be, significantly correlated with the childâs mean curiosity score (R = 0.44, p = 0.043) suggesting predictive construct validity. Preliminary results are promising in that the measure captures individual differences in infantsâ general curiosity while keeping the number of items and response time low. Small adjustments have been made and data collection from a wider population across the full age-range with a target sample size of N = 360 is currently ongoing. Reliability analyses as well as structural equation modelling has been preregistered on aspredicted.org. This new measure will help us understand infant curiosity, its development, expression, and potential stability from a very early age. It may also inform experimental studies by explaining additional variance of active engagement
The ABC of social learning:Affect, Behaviour and Cognition
Debates concerning social learning in the behavioral and the developmental cognitive sciences have largely ignored the literature on social influence in the affective sciences despite having arguably the same object of study. We argue that this is a mistake and that no complete model of social learning can exclude an affective aspect. In addition, we argue that including affect can advance the somewhat stagnant debates concerning the unique characteristics of social learning in humans compared to other animals. We first review the two major bodies of literature in nonhuman animals and human development, highlighting the fact that the former has adopted a behavioral approach while the latter has adopted a cognitive approach, leading to irreconcilable differences. We then introduce a novel framework, affective social learning (ASL), that studies the way we learn about value(s). We show that all three approaches are complementary and focus, respectively, on behavior toward; cognitions concerning; and feelings about objects, events, and people in our environment. All three thus contribute to an affective, behavioral, and cognitive (ABC) story of knowledge transmission: the ABC of social learning. In particular, ASL can provide the backbone of an integrative approach to social learning. We argue that this novel perspective on social learning can allow both evolutionary continuity and ontogenetic development by lowering the cognitive thresholds that appear often too complex for other species and nonverbal infants. Yet, it can also explain some of the major achievements only found in human cultures
Intended persistence:Comparing academic and creative challenges in high school
How do high school students approach academic and creative challenges? This study compares the content of academic and creative challenges for 190 high school students, and examines studentsâ intentions to persist. Students reported experiencing academic and creative challenges in different areas: academic challenges were described primarily in math/science and English, with themes related to time management and striving to improve, while creative challenges were described overwhelmingly in art and music and concerned problem solving difficulties. Students reported more interest and intention to persist in the creative than academic challenges. Interest was the strongest predictor of persistence across both academic and creative challenges. The divergent perceptions of creative and academic challenges suggest that capitalizing on the creative elements of academic assignments could boost student interest and subsequent persistence