Learning words from reliable and unreliable speakers

Three studies examined whether 3- and 4-year olds would trust a reliable speaker over an unreliable speaker when learning a new word and whether that trust would be reversed, and the word mapping revised, when a trusted speaker later proved unreliable. Study 1 indicated that 3- and 4-year olds trusted a reliable speaker over an unreliable speaker. Study 2 indicated that some 4-year olds reversed trust and revised a word mapping when a trusted speaker later proved unreliable. Study 3 indicated that those 4-year olds who reversed trust and revised the word mapping were likely to maintain the revision and tended to favor the previously reliable speaker over time. These results are discussed in terms of the role of speaker reliability in young children's word learning.     

False-belief understanding at age 5 predicts beliefs about learning in year 3 of primary school

This study examined the concurrent and longitudinal relationships between children's theory of mind (ToM) and their beliefs about learning. A sample of 63 children was tested for theory of mind and verbal ability at four time points: 5, 6, 7 and 8 years of age. In addition, at Time 4, children were administered a questionnaire investigating their beliefs about learning. Results showed longitudinal and concurrent relationships between ToM and constructivist, but not reproductive, beliefs about learning. Crucially, false-belief understanding at age 5 predicted unique variance in constructivist beliefs about learning at age 8, when controlling for subsequent levels of ToM. This relationship was not due to verbal ability. The authors discuss theoretical and practical implications of the longitudinal effect of theory of mind ability on constructivist beliefs about learning.     

Theory of mind and epistemological development: the relation between children's second-order false-belief understanding and their ability to reason about evidence

The study investigates the hypothesis that children's ability to attribute second-order beliefs facilitates their understanding of evidence, as seen in the ability to distinguish between causes and reasons. Seventy-four children 5–7 yr old were given belief and evidence tests. The belief tests assessed their ability to represent and reason from second-order false-beliefs, and the evidence tests assessed their ability to distinguish between the cause of a situation and a person's reason for believing it. The relation between performance on the two tests was determined, taking into account general language and non-verbal reasoning abilities. Results show that performance on the belief test and on the evidence part of the evidence test improved significantly over the age range, and that a significant proportion of variance in the evidence test scores is accounted for by second-order false-belief understanding, over and above that accounted for by general language and non-verbal abilities. The argument is made that second-order false-belief understanding is fundamental to children's epistemological development, underlying not just their understanding of evidence, but also their understanding of inference and truth.     

Longitudinal associations between children's understanding of emotions and theory of mind

Theory of mind competence and knowledge of emotions were studied longitudinally in a sample of preschoolers aged 3 (n=263) and 4 (n=244) years. Children were assessed using standard measures of theory of mind and emotion knowledge. Three competing hypotheses were tested regarding the developmental associations between children's theory of mind abilities and their knowledge of emotions. First, that an understanding of emotion develops early and informs children's understanding of others’ thinking. Alternatively, having a basic theory of mind may help children learn about emotions. Third, that the two domains are separate aspects of children's social cognitive skills such that each area develops independently. Results of hierarchical regressions supported the first hypothesis that early emotion understanding predicts later theory-of-mind performance, and not the reverse.     

Remote control and children's understanding of robots

Children use goal-directed motion to classify agents as living things from early in infancy. In the current study, we asked whether preschoolers are flexible in their application of this criterion by introducing them to robots that engaged in goal-directed motion. In one case the robot appeared to move fully autonomously, and in the other case it was controlled by a remote. We found that 4- and 5-year-olds attributed fewer living thing properties to the robot after seeing it controlled by a remote, suggesting that they are flexible in their application of the goal-directed motion criterion in the face of conflicting evidence of living thing status. Children can flexibly incorporate internal causes for an agent’s behavior to enrich their understanding of novel agents.     

Theory of mind selectively predicts preschoolers’ knowledge‐based selective word learning

Children can selectively attend to various attributes of a model, such as past accuracy or physical strength, to guide their social learning. There is a debate regarding whether a relation exists between theory‐of‐mind skills and selective learning. We hypothesized that high performance on theory‐of‐mind tasks would predict preference for learning new words from accurate informants (an epistemic attribute), but not from physically strong informants (a non‐epistemic attribute). Three‐ and 4‐year‐olds (N = 65) completed two selective learning tasks, and their theory‐of‐mind abilities were assessed. As expected, performance on a theory‐of‐mind battery predicted children's preference to learn from more accurate informants but not from physically stronger informants. Results thus suggest that preschoolers with more advanced theory of mind have a better understanding of knowledge and apply that understanding to guide their selection of informants. This work has important implications for research on children's developing social cognition and early learning.     

Second-order beliefs about intention and children's attributions of sociomoral judgment

Predicting how another person will evaluate the intention underlying an action involves consideration of second-order mental states. Children (ages 5-10 years) and college students (N=105) predicted an observer's belief about an actor's intention and evaluated the actor from both their own perspectives and the perspective of the observer. Younger children were more likely than older children and adults to attribute a belief to the observer that mismatched the actor's prior intention. Attributed beliefs about intention were more likely to match negative prior intentions than to match positive prior intentions and were also more likely to match prior intentions when the observer knew the actor's prior intention than when the observer did not know the actor's prior intention. The judgments attributed to the observer were based on the beliefs about intention attributed to the observer, showing use of second-order mental states to infer another's sociomoral judgments.     

Older children's misunderstanding of uncertain belief after passing the false belief test

A four-location belief task was designed to examine children's understanding of another's uncertain belief after passing a false belief (FB) task. In Experiment 1, after passing the FB task, participants were asked what a puppet would do after he failed to find his toy at the falsely believed location. Most 4-year-olds and half of 6-year-olds children who passed the FB test showed difficulty in handling uncertain belief; answering that the puppet would then look for his toy at the current (moved-to) location. Eight-year-old children and adults all recognized that the puppet would look for the toy everywhere, or at random. In Experiment 2, 4- and 6-year-olds were presented two other search tasks; it was shown that preschoolers could use search strategies to solve a similar search problem when FB was not involved. This new aspect of post-FB understanding can be interpreted in terms of limited understanding of uncertainty in a less-knowledgeable individual and of limited ability to infer the consequences of belief-disconfirmation.     

Five-year-old children's difficulty with false belief when the sought entity is a person

A total of 153 children (excluding those who erred on control questions), mainly 5 and 7 years of age, participated in two experiments that involved tests of false belief. In the task, the sought entity was first at Location 1 and then, unknown to the searching protagonist, it moved to Location 2. In Experiment 1, performance was well below ceiling in 5-year-olds when the sought entity was a person, and this contrasted with a task in which the sought entity was a physical object. Performance was especially inaccurate when the sought person moved of his or her own volition rather than when the sought person was requested to move by a third party. Interestingly, 5-year-olds were more likely to nominate Location 1 when asked where the searching protagonist would look first than when asked what he or she would do next. In Experiment 2, however, 5-year-olds also tended to nominate Location 1 following a question that included the word "first" even in a test of true belief--a patently incorrect response. Altogether, the results suggest that 5-year-old children have considerable difficulty with a test of false belief when the sought entity is a person acting under his or her own volition. This suggests that 5-year-olds' handle on states of belief is surprisingly fragile in this kind of task.     

Development in children's attribution of embarrassment and the relationship with theory of mind and shyness

The present study examined the two-stage developmental theory of the understanding of embarrassment (Modigliani & Blumenfeld, 1979) through the administration of verbal and non-verbal measures. Moreover, the relationship between children's attributions of embarrassment and their ability to understand false beliefs and propensity to be shy was investigated. Ninety-five children (4 to 9 years old) were presented with brief stories in which the main character received negative, neutral, or positive social reactions. Verbal and non-verbal attributions of embarrassment were examined. In addition, a false-belief task and a shyness-propensity questionnaire were administered. Using verbal measures, older children reported more embarrassment in the negative and neutral conditions compared to younger children. However, using non-verbal measures, these age differences disappeared. This suggests that young children may have a “mature” understanding of embarrassment, but may not be able to express this linguistically. Verbal and non-verbal embarrassment attributions were not related to the understanding of false beliefs, but they were related to shyness propensity. The results are discussed in terms of socio-cognitive and emotional factors in understanding emotions.     

Children's understanding of teaching: the role of knowledge and belief

The relation between preschoolers’ concept of teaching and theory of mind was explored to determine if there is a developmental change in understanding how teaching depends on knowledge and belief. The study tested whether 3- to 6-year-olds thought the awareness of a knowledge difference is necessary for teaching. The 3- and 4-year-olds understood teaching stories with clear knowledge differences and could correctly use that information to specify the teacher and learner. The 5- and 6-year-olds, who performed well on a standard false belief task, further understood that it was the teacher's belief about the knowledge difference that would actually govern teaching. The conceptual link to teaching suggests that theory of mind is critical for understanding other forms of knowledge acquisition besides perceptual access.     

Three ideal observer models for rule learning in simple languages

Children learning the inflections of their native language show the ability to generalize beyond the perceptual particulars of the examples they are exposed to. The phenomenon of “rule learning”—quick learning of abstract regularities from exposure to a limited set of stimuli—has become an important model system for understanding generalization in infancy. Experiments with adults and children have revealed differences in performance across domains and types of rules. To understand the representational and inferential assumptions necessary to capture this broad set of results, we introduce three ideal observer models for rule learning. Each model builds on the next, allowing us to test the consequences of individual assumptions. Model 1 learns a single rule, Model 2 learns a single rule from noisy input, and Model 3 learns multiple rules from noisy input. These models capture a wide range of experimental results—including several that have been used to argue for domain-specificity or limits on the kinds of generalizations learners can make—suggesting that these ideal observers may be a useful baseline for future work on rule learning.     

Young children's self‐benefiting lies and their relation to executive functioning and theory of mind

It is well established that children lie in different social contexts for various purposes from the age of 2 years. Surprisingly, little is known about whether very young children will spontaneously lie for personal gain, how self‐benefiting lies emerge, and what cognitive factors affect the emergence of self‐benefiting lies. To bridge this gap in the literature, we situated children between 2 and 4 years of age in a zero‐sum game where children must lie to their opponent if they wanted to win a desirable reward. We found that the majority of young children did not lie even when they experienced personal losses repeatedly. However, some children spontaneously lied during the game; as the game progressed, more children lied. Further, we found that children's theory of mind understanding and executive functioning in terms of a combination of inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility had significant positive and unique correlations with how frequently children lied for personal gain. The present results taken together with the existing findings regarding children's lies for self‐protection and politeness purposes suggest that the act of lying begins early in life. Further, its emergence and development are influenced by children's specific cognitive abilities in the domains of theory of mind understanding and executive functioning.

Highlights

• The study investigated whether very young children will spontaneously lie for personal gain.
• This study used a zero‐sum game to elicit children's self‐benefiting lies. Results showed the majority of young children did not lie, and it is related to children's theory of mind understanding and executive functioning.
• The act of lying begins early in life, and its emergence and development are influenced by children's specific cognitive abilities in the domains of theory of mind understanding and executive functioning.

     

Young children's reports of when learning occurred

This study investigated young children's reports of when learning occurred. A total of 96 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds were recruited from suburban preschools and elementary schools. The children learned an animal fact and a body movement. A week later, children learned another animal fact and another body movement and then answered questions about when the different learning events occurred. Responses of children who responded correctly to control questions about time supported the hypothesis that temporal distance questions would elicit more correct responses than would temporal location questions. Partial support was also found for the hypothesis that behavior learning would generate more correct reports than would fact learning. Implications for characterizations of children's developing understanding of knowledge and for applications of those characterizations in education and eyewitness testimony are discussed.     

The role of experience in children's developing folk epistemology: review and analysis from the theory–theory perspective

The role of experience in children's developing folk epistemology, specifically in their acquisition of an understanding of belief, is explored from the theory–theory perspective (i.e., the perspective claiming that children's conceptual development can be viewed as analogous to scientific theory development) through a selective review and analysis of extant empirical literature. Three types of investigations are identified: examinations of observed relationships between social experiences and belief understanding, attempts to facilitate the reasoning of children on the verge of belief understanding through experiences intended to compel children to face reasoning inconsistencies; and training studies demonstrating that children can be trained to understand belief over time through specific feedback experiences. A comparison of these studies reveals that experience is defined differently across them, resulting in varying and sometimes ambiguous implications for a theory–theory perspective on development. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Young children's psychological explanations and their relationship to perception‐ and intention‐understanding

The present study examined two key aspects of young children's ability to explain human behaviour in a mentalistic way. First, we explored desires that are of a level of difficulty comparable with that of false beliefs. For this purpose, the so‐called ‘alternative desires’ were created. Second, we examined how children's psychological explanations are related to their understanding of perception and intention. A perception‐understanding task, an intention‐understanding task and a psychological‐explanation task were administered to 80 three‐year‐olds. Results offer support for the thesis that the level of difficulty of belief and desire explanations is comparable. Moreover, children's psychological explanations are related to their understanding of perception and intention. The results lend support to the idea that mentalistic explanations are an explicit manifestation of children's level of theory of mind. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Keeping the reader's mind in mind: Development of perspective-taking in children's dictations

This study investigated when children can take the perspective of their reader if the information-processing demands of writing are removed by means of dictation to a scribe. Participants (N = 96) aged 5, 6 and 7 years dictated letters to an addressee who possessed requisite content knowledge, and then revised the letter or dictated a new letter to an addressee who lacked this knowledge (counterbalanced). Results showed that 19% of 5-year-olds, 41% of 6-year-olds, and 72% of 7-year-olds considered their reader's missing knowledge. Children's awareness of their reader's knowledge was neither related to performance on higher-order theory of mind tasks, nor to measures of executive function. Significantly greater perspective-taking was demonstrated in children's new letters than revised letters. However, although revision is considered a late-developing skill, half of even the 5-year-olds were able to make revisions (albeit few revisions demonstrated actual perspective-taking). Findings have significant implications for the emergent-literacy curriculum.     

Developmental changes in children's understanding of future likelihood and uncertainty

Two measures assessed 4-10-year-olds’ and adults’ (N = 201) understanding of future likelihood and uncertainty. In one task, participants sequenced sets of event pictures varying by one physical dimension according to increasing future likelihood. In a separate task, participants rated characters’ thoughts about the likelihood of future events, their emotions, and their decisions in indeterminate social situations. Results showed significant development between ages 4 and 10 in seriating events according to future likelihood and in selecting thought and emotion ratings indicative of future uncertainty. Higher performance on the future likelihood ordering task correlated with greater understanding of future uncertainty in thought, emotion, and decision judgments. Females judged future events to be more uncertain than males.     

Young children's moral judgments of commission and omission related to the understanding of Knowledge or Ignorance

This study examined developmental change in young children's moral judgments of commission and omission related to mental states, especially knowledge or ignorance. 4–5 and 5‐ to 6‐year‐olds (n=67) made moral judgments about the tasks related to the understanding of knowledge or ignorance. The tasks were also composed of two types of acts: commission or omission. The results showed that the both age groups understood knowledge and ignorance, but that the older group made moral judgments based on this understanding more similar to adults compared to the younger group. There was not an age difference concerning whether the acts were of commission or omission. These findings indicate that there is no difference for young children in the difficulty in moral judgments of acts of commission and omission related to mental states, whereas there is a developmental difference in using the understanding of knowledge or ignorance for making moral judgments. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.