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Toddlers favor communicatively presented information over statistical reliability in learning about artifacts
1Language, Cognition and Development Lab, SISSA, Trieste, Italy.
Plos One
|March 18, 2015
Summary
Toddlers may favor communicative demonstrations over statistical reliability when learning new skills. This suggests social cues can override objective evidence in early childhood development.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Development
- Developmental Psychology
- Social Learning
Background:
- Infants and toddlers learn through various sources of information, including observation and social communication.
- Understanding how young children weigh different types of evidence is crucial for comprehending knowledge acquisition.
- The reliability of information sources influences learning outcomes in developing individuals.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether toddlers prioritize statistical evidence of efficiency or communicative demonstrations when learning to use a novel artifact.
- To determine if social cues in demonstrations can override objective statistical information about an intervention's reliability.
- To explore the role of communicative sanctioning in early learning biases.
Main Methods:
- Eighteen-month-old infants were exposed to two conditions: Baseline (no communicative signals) and Experimental (communicative demonstrations).
- Infants observed two adults demonstrating an artifact, with one method having a higher success probability (2/3) than the other (1/3).
- Learning was assessed by observing which method the infants chose to operate the artifact.
Main Results:
- In the Experimental condition, infants tended to select the less reliable method (1/3 success) when it was presented communicatively.
- Infants' choices in the Experimental condition contrasted with the Baseline condition, where statistical evidence might be more influential.
- Communicative demonstrations appeared to override statistical information regarding the artifact's operational efficiency.
Conclusions:
- Communicative cues can significantly influence toddlers' learning, sometimes leading them to favor less reliable methods.
- Social transmission of knowledge can be prioritized over statistical evidence in early development.
- This bias towards communicative sanctioning may facilitate rapid knowledge transfer across generations.
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