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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 16, 2025

The Spatial Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition

The Spatial Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition

Published on: February 19, 2018

The "curse of knowledge" when predicting others' knowledge.

Jonathan G Tullis¹, Brennen Feder²

¹Department of Educational Psychology, University of Arizona, 1430 E. Second St., Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA. tullis@arizona.edu.

Memory & Cognition

|December 27, 2022

Summary

Learning new information can hinder your ability to accurately judge what others know. This study reveals that acquired knowledge, rather than over-reliance on self-knowledge, impairs social cognition and accurate estimation of others

Keywords:

Curse of knowledge Egocentrism Expertise bias Metacognition Perspective-taking

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Social Cognition
Theory of Mind

Background:

Accurate estimation of others' knowledge is crucial for social interaction and effective communication.
An individual's own knowledge often contaminates their judgments about others' understanding.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how personal knowledge acquisition affects the accuracy (calibration and resolution) of estimating novices' knowledge.
To determine the role of self-knowledge contamination versus lack of diagnostic cues in inaccurate social judgments.

Main Methods:

Participants studied trivia questions and estimated the percentage of novices who would know the answers.
Four experiments were conducted, manipulating the timing of answering questions relative to estimation.
Reliance on self-knowledge was experimentally manipulated.

Main Results:

Studying trivia questions impaired both the calibration and resolution of estimates of novices' knowledge.
Acquired knowledge reduced the validity of personal experience for predicting others' knowledge.
Reducing reliance on self-knowledge did not improve estimation accuracy.

Conclusions:

Learning new information can impair the accuracy of judgments about others' knowledge.
Inaccuracy stems from a lack of diagnostic cues about others' knowledge, not excessive reliance on one's own.