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How experts and novices judge other people's knowledgeability from language use
Alexander H Bower1, Nicole Han2,3, Ansh Soni2
1Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
|January 4, 2024
Summary
People can judge others' knowledge from language, with experts distinguishing true from false statements. Novices focus on statement quantity, impacting misinformation processing.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Linguistics
Background:
- Assessing others' knowledge is crucial for social interaction and information processing.
- Language use is a primary, yet understudied, cue for judging expertise.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the accuracy of judging knowledge based on language.
- To determine if more knowledgeable individuals use different linguistic cues for judgment.
Main Methods:
- Participants ('informants') answered general knowledge questions and described images.
- Another group ('evaluators') judged informant knowledge based on their descriptions.
- Evaluators also answered general knowledge questions.
Main Results:
- Evaluators identified more knowledgeable informants above chance (65% accuracy with one description).
- Less knowledgeable evaluators focused on statement quantity (true or false).
- More knowledgeable evaluators differentiated true and false statements, penalizing specificity in false claims.
Conclusions:
- Language specificity is a powerful indicator of knowledge, but its interpretation varies with expertise.
- Expert and novice processing of misinformation differs based on evaluative linguistic cues.
- Findings highlight the nuanced role of language in social cognition and knowledge assessment.
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