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Pointing Disrupts Preschoolers' Ability to Discriminate Between Knowledgeable and Ignorant Informants

Carolyn M Palmquist1, Heather E Burns, Vikram K Jaswal

  • 1University of Virginia.

Cognitive Development
|January 17, 2012
PubMed

Insights

Children’s early experiences with pointing influence their understanding of knowledge. Reinforcement for looking where others point can impair young children’s ability to identify knowledgeable informants.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Social Cognition

Background:

  • Children are frequently reinforced to look where others point.
  • This reinforcement may shape their understanding of social cues and knowledge attribution.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if prior reinforcement for looking at points interferes with children's ability to distinguish knowledgeable from ignorant informants.
  • To examine the impact of pointing as a communicative cue on children's knowledge discrimination.

Main Methods:

  • Two studies were conducted with 4-year-old children.
  • Children observed an informant hide an object and then indicate its location via pointing or another less common cue.
  • They then judged which informant possessed knowledge about the object's location.

Main Results:

  • Children failed to differentiate between knowledgeable and ignorant informants when the cue was pointing.
  • When informants used a non-pointing cue, children successfully identified the knowledgeable informant.
  • Pointing significantly disrupted children's ability to assess informant knowledge.

Conclusions:

  • Early reinforcement for following pointing cues can hinder children's ability to assess informant reliability.
  • The act of pointing can interfere with fundamental understandings of the link between perception and knowledge in young children.

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