An Illusion of Self‐Sufficiency for Learning About Artifacts in Scaffolded Learners, But Not Observers

Abstract

Two studies ask whether scaffolded children (n = 243, 5–6 years and 9–10 years) recognize that assistance is needed to learn to use complex artifacts. In Study 1, children were asked to learn to use a toy pantograph. While children recognized the need for assistance for indirect knowledge, 70% of scaffolded children claimed that they would have learned to use the artifact without assistance, even though 0% of children actually succeeded without assistance. In Study 2, this illusion of self‐sufficiency was significantly attenuated when observing another learner being scaffolded. Learners may fail to appreciate artifacts’ opacity because self‐directed exploration can be partially informative, such that learning to use artifacts is typically scaffolded instead of taught explicitly.

Comparing Online Webcam- and Laboratory-Based Eye-Tracking for the Assessment of Infants’ Audio-Visual Synchrony Perception

“…Moderated and unmoderated procedures could also be combined: experimenters may instruct parents in a live video call on how to carry out the experimental task and provide support with the participant’s set-up or troubleshooting technical issues ( Smith-Flores et al, 2021 ). Moderated online studies have been successfully adapted for older children ( Chuey et al, 2020 ; Kominsky et al, 2021b ; Richardson et al, 2021 ; Yamamoto et al, 2021 ), but could be challenging to realize with infants if the study design involves social interaction ( Lo et al, 2021 ). Prior research shows that infants only become able to initiate joint visual attention by the age of 16 months during online interactions ( McClure et al, 2018 ), thus moderated experiments mostly rely on observations of parental and infant behavior ( Libertus and Violi, 2016 ; Daghighi et al, 2020 ; Oliver and Pike, 2021 ).…”

The contribution of sensory information asymmetry and bias of attribution to egocentric tendencies in effort comparison tasks

“…These findings have important ramifications for how biases in social comparison can be understood and possibly modified through appropriate policies ( Chambers and De Dreu, 2014 ). A self vs. other bias indicates a representational bias that has been reinforced over a lifespan ( Palminteri et al, 2017 ) and is likely to resist change, whereas an active vs. observe bias, such as the one we found, is driven by information availability and therefore can be corrected readily by making information more symmetrical (e.g., through perspective taking; Zhou et al, 2013 ; Richardson et al, 2021 ). Together, these results support the notion that egocentric biases may indeed be a rational strategy to face the impoverished information that is available to agents when evaluating others, and can therefore be mitigated by enhancing their knowledge of the comparison group ( Kruger et al, 2008 ; Chambers and De Dreu, 2014 ).…”

Online Developmental Research: Observations from Moderated Studies

“…Various stages of research such as participant recruitment (Amon, Campbell, Hawke, & Steinbeck, 2014;Gilligan, Kypri, & Bourke, 2014;Thornton, Batterham, Fassnacht, Kay-Lambkin, Calear, & Hunt, a Boğaziçi University, Department of Psychology, gunes.oner@boun.edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0002-0312-6712 b Boğaziçi University, Department of Psychology, neslihan.oguz@boun.edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0003-4980-0108 c Boğaziçi University, Department of Psychology, ozdes.cetin@boun.edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0001-5007-1411 d Boğaziçi University, Department of Psychology, simge.ersonmez@boun.edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0001-9212-1333 e Boğaziçi University, Department of Psychology, pinar.karan@boun.edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0001-9895-0175 f Boğaziçi University, Department of Psychology, mahmut.kurupinar@boun.edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0001-5376-1303 g Boğaziçi University, Department of Psychology, oya.serbest@boun.edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0001-7442-4699 h Corresponding author: Boğaziçi University, Department of Psychology, gaye.soley@boun.edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0002-6333-6017 2016), testing (e.g., Discoveries Online [Rhodes et al, 2020]; Lookit ; TheChildLab.com [Sheskin & Keil, 2018]), coding (Chouinard, Scott, & Cusack, 2019) and sharing the materials and data (e.g., the OSF [Foster & Deardorff, 2017], The Child Language Data Exchange System -CHILDES [MacWhinney, 2000]; databrary.org [Adolph, Gilmore, & Kennedy, 2017]) have increasingly moved to online platforms. While remote data collection has long been in place for other fields of psychology, developmental scientists started adopting online methods for data collection only in recent years (e.g., Chouinard et al, 2019;Chuey, Lockhart, Sheskin, & Keil, 2020;Johnston, Sheskin, & Keil, 2019;Kominsky, Gerstenberg, Pelz, Sheskin, Singmann, Schulz, & Keil, 2021;Leshin, Leslie, & Rhodes, 2020;Manning, Harpole, Harriott, Postolowicz, & Norton, 2020;Nussenbaum, Scheuplein, Phaneuf, Evans, & Hartley, 2020;Richardson, Sheskin, & Keil, 2021;Scott, Chu, & Shulz, 2017;Smith-Flores, Perez, Zhang, & Feigenson, 2021;Soley & Köseler, 2021;Tran, Cabral, Patel, & Cusack, 2017). COVID-19 pandemic conditions have further spread the use of online research tools in many fields, including developmental science.…”