Testimony bias lingers across development under uncertainty

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Development
• Social Learning Theory
• Child Psychology

Background:

• Children possess strong probabilistic reasoning skills.
• However, young learners sometimes follow testimony over rewards, a phenomenon known as testimony bias.
• This bias is typically studied in preschoolers, with less focus on older children or lingering effects under uncertainty.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate testimony bias in children aged 4 to 9 years.
• To determine if testimony bias persists beyond preschool age, particularly under conditions of uncertainty.
• To examine the influence of testimony reliability and source on children's decision-making.

Main Methods:

• Children (4-9 years old) participated in reward-seeking tasks with varying testimony reliability.
• Experiment 1 assessed sensitivity to trial-by-trial uncertainty.
• Experiment 2 differentiated between human and computer-generated testimony.
• Experiment 3 examined responses to unexpected changes in testimony reliability.

Main Results:

• Evidence supports the existence of testimony bias in children older than preschool age.
• Children exhibited a stronger bias when testimony was uncertain.
• The impact of testimony bias diminished with increasing age.
• The bias was specific to human testimony, not computer errors.

Conclusions:

• Testimony bias influences children's choices even when they possess advanced reasoning skills.
• Uncertainty exacerbates the reliance on testimony.
• Understanding testimony bias is crucial for comprehending social learning and decision-making in developing children.