I'm Better than You at Labeling!": Preschoolers Use Past Reliability when Accepting Unexpected Labels (original) (raw)
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Young Children's Reliance on Information From Inaccurate Informants
Cognitive Science
Prior work shows that children selectively learn from credible speakers. Yet little is known how they treat information from non-credible speakers. This research examined to what extent and under what conditions children may or may not learn from problematic sources. In three studies, we found that children displayed trust toward previously inaccurate speakers. Children were equally likely to extend labels from previously accurate and inaccurate speakers to novel objects. Moreover, they expected third parties to share labels provided by previously inaccurate speakers. Only when there was clear evidence that the speakers' information was wrong (as in the case when speakers' perceptual access to the information was blocked), did young children reject the label. Together, the findings provide evidence that young children do not completely ignore the labels supplied by non-credible speakers unless there is strong reason to do so.
Changing your mind about things unseen: Toddlers' sensitivity to prior reliability.
The goal of this research was to investigate the extent to which young children use the past reliability of another person's statements to make inferences about the accuracy of that person's claims about a hidden toy. When children interacted with a previously reliable speaker, both 30-and 36-month-olds searched in the new location of the toy, in line with the speaker's statement. When children interacted with an unreliable speaker, the 36-month-olds were less likely to rely on her false statement and instead searched either in the original location of the toy or in a neutral location. The 30-month-olds, however, searched in the location indicated by the speaker even when the speaker was unreliable. These results show that by 36 months of age, children begin to use reliability in processing a speaker's episodic claims and can flexibly update their representations of absent objects depending on the reliability of the speaker.
Preschoolers Monitor the Relative Accuracy of Informants
Developmental Psychology, 2007
In 2 studies, the sensitivity of 3-and 4-year-olds to the previous accuracy of informants was assessed. Children viewed films in which 2 informants labeled familiar objects with differential accuracy (across the 2 experiments, children were exposed to the following rates of accuracy by the more and less accurate informants, respectively: 100% vs. 0%, 100% vs. 25%, 75% vs. 0%, and 75% vs. 25%). Next, children watched films in which the same 2 informants provided conflicting novel labels for unfamiliar objects.
Trust in Testimony: Children's Use of True and False Statements
Psychological Science, 2004
The extent to which young children monitor and use the truth of assertions to gauge the reliability of subsequent testimony was examined. Three-and 4-year-old children were presented with two informants, an accurate labeler and an inaccurate labeler. They were then invited to learn names for novel objects from these informants. The children correctly monitored and identified the informants on the basis of the truth of their prior labeling. Furthermore, children who explicitly identified the unreliable or reliable informant across two tasks went on to demonstrate selective trust in the novel information provided by the previously reliable informant. Children who did not consistently identify the unreliable or reliable informant proved indiscriminate.
Credulity and the development of selective trust in early childhood
Foundations of Metacognition, 2012
Many recent studies have underlined the fact that, under certain conditions, 3-and 4-year-old children will defer to proposals that run counter to their own ideas and observations. In opening a box, they set aside their own efficient procedure to reproduce a more elaborate and inefficient technique that has been demonstrated to them (Horner and Whiten 2005 ; Lyons et al. 2007, 2011 ; Nielsen and Tomaselli 2010). Asked to say what category an object belongs to and infer its properties, they revise their initial, appearance-based categorization when an adult proposes an alternative that is less consistent with the available perceptual evidence (Jaswal 2004). When told about the movement and final resting-place of an object falling down an opaque tube, they are prepared to set aside their otherwise robust, gravity-based expectations to search where told (Bascandziev and Harris 2010 ; Jaswal 2010). Indeed, even when confronted with repeated evidence that what they have been told is false, preschoolers continue to act on that information, for example, by following an adult's misleading indication of the location of a hidden object (Couillard and Woodward 1999 ; Jaswal et al. 2010). These deferential reactions lend support to the long-standing assumption that young children are credulous-disposed to trust claims made by other people even when those claims run counter to their own convictions or intuitions. Contrary to this assumption, we argue that children are not prone to indiscriminate credulity. Instead, they engage in what we will refer to as selective trust. As just documented, young children do accept information from others, even when it runs counter to their own observations and intuitions. Nevertheless, when they meet informants who make conflicting claims they do not endorse both claims. They typically endorse those made by one informant rather than the other. In particular, they use two guiding principles or heuristics. They are inclined to accept the claims of informants with whom they have a social connection over those made by strangers. Second, they are inclined to accept the claims of informants who have proven well-informed rather than ill-informed. We describe the evidence for these two heuristics and then ask what children do when the two heuristics are placed in opposition. Whom do young children endorse if a relative stranger appears to be better informed than someone they know well? Having reviewed the available findings, we consider their implications for children's metacognitive abilities. More specifically, we weigh up two possible interpretations. One possibility is that when children select among informants, such selectivity necessarily implies a capacity for metacognition, however limited or basic. A second possible interpretation is that children might initially select among informants, irrespective of any metacognitive capacity that they possess. On this argument, it is only when children begin to select among informants in terms of how well informed those informants are that it is legitimate to speak in terms of metacognition.
Young Children Have a Specific, Highly Robust Bias to Trust Testimony
Psychological Science, 2010
Why are young children so willing to believe what they are told? In two studies, we investigated whether it is because of a general, undifferentiated trust in other people or a more specific bias to trust testimony. In Study 1, 3-year-olds either heard an experimenter claim that a sticker was in one location when it was actually in another or saw her place an arrow on the empty location. All children searched in the wrong location initially, but those who heard the deceptive testimony continued to be misled, whereas those who saw her mark the incorrect location with an arrow quickly learned to search in the opposite location. In Study 2, children who could both see and hear a deceptive speaker were more likely to be misled than those who could only hear her. Threeyear-olds have a specific, highly robust bias to trust what people-particularly visible speakerssay.
2008
To determine whether children retain a preference for a previously accurate informant only in the short term or for long-term use, 3-and 4-year-old children were tested in two experiments. In both experiments, children were given accuracy information about two informants and were subsequently tested for their selective trust in the two informants (Experiment 1: immediately, 1 day and 1 week later; Experiment 2: immediately, 4 days and 1 week later). Both age groups preferred to trust the accurate informant not only immediately after receiving accuracy information but also at subsequent time-points. Children who were immediately able to explicitly identify the accurate informant were significantly more likely to seek and accept information from her 1 week later. However, even when they had not been asked to explicitly identify the accurate informant both age groups still maintained their preference for her. Thus, by 3 years of age, children spontaneously choose a previously accurate informant up to 1 week after exposure to information regarding her accuracy.
Child development, 2015
Recent studies have demonstrated that young children use past reliability and consensus to endorse object labels. Until now, no study has investigated how children weigh these two cues when they are in conflict. The two experiments reported here were designed to explore whether any initial preference for information provided by a consensual group would be influenced by the group's subsequent unreliability. The results show that 4- and 5-year-old children were more likely to endorse labels provided by an unreliable but consensual group than the labels provided by a reliable dissenter. Six-year-olds displayed the reverse pattern. The article concludes by discussing the methodological implications of the two experiments and the developmental trajectory regarding the way children weigh consensuality versus reliability.
Children often learn about the world through direct observation. However, much of children's knowledge is acquired through the testimony of others. This research investigates how preschoolers weigh these two sources of information when they are in conflict. Children watched as an adult hid a toy in one location. Then the adult told children that the toy was in a different location (i.e. false testimony). When retrieving the toy, 4-and 5-year-olds relied on what they had seen and disregarded the adult's false testimony. However, most 3-year-olds deferred to the false testimony, despite what they had directly observed. Importantly, with a positive searching experience based on what they saw, or with a single prior experience with an adult as unreliable, 3-year-olds subsequently relied on their first-hand observation and disregarded the adult's false testimony. Thus, young children may initially be credulous toward others' false testimony that contradicts their direct observation, but skepticism can develop quickly through experience.
Sensitivity of 24-Month-Olds to the Prior Inaccuracy of the Source: Possible Mechanisms
Three studies examined 24-month-olds' sensitivity to the prior accuracy of the source of information and the way in which young children modify their word learning from inaccurate sources. In Experiments 1A, 2, and 3, toddlers interacted with an accurate or inaccurate speaker who trained and tested children's comprehension of a new word– object link. In Experiment 1, children performed less systematically in response to an inaccurate than to an accurate source. In Experiments 2 and 3, after toddlers' comprehension of the new word– object links was tested by the original source, a second speaker requested the target objects. In Experiment 2, children responded randomly in response to the second speaker's requests when novel words were previously presented by an inaccurate source. In Experiment 3, toddlers responded randomly in response to both speakers in the inaccurate condition when their memory for words was taxed by a brief delay period. Taken together, these findings suggest that toddlers attend to accuracy information, that they treat inaccuracy as a feature of a particular individual, and that the word– object representations formed as a result may be fragile and short lived. Findings are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms by which children adjust their word learning from problematic speakers. Much of what we know we learn through communication with others. We rely on the reports of others for discoveries in science, the geography of the world, the names of objects, the date of our birth, the name of our town, the identity of our parents, and many other domains that play important roles in our lives. Our deep dependence on human communication and other forms of cultural transmission brings with it central questions about the process by which we acquire knowledge from other people. What cognitive safeguards might protect against false or deceptive input? Although much evidence demonstrates that preschool children are sensitive to variation among informants in knowledge and reliabil