Early Testimonial Learning

Stephens, Elizabeth; Suárez, Sarah; Koenig, Melissa A.

doi:10.1016/bs.acdb.2014.11.004

Cited by 19 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 108 publications

(121 reference statements)

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“…Our findings also contribute to the literature on children's selective trust. There has been extensive work on trust in others' testimony, which has found that children selectively trust others from 3 to 4 years of age (Harris et al, 2012;Koenig et al, 2004;Mascaro & Morin, 2014;Stephens, Suarez, & Koenig, 2015). This is about 2 years earlier than we found in our study using a similar paradigm.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 55%

Children's Selective Trust in Promises

2018

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There has been extensive research into the development of selective trust in testimony, but little is known about the development of selective trust in promises. The present research investigates children's (N = 264) selective trust in others' promises to help. In Study 1, 6-year-olds selectively trusted speakers who had previously kept a promise. In Study 2, 5-year-olds displayed selective trust for speakers who had previously kept a prosocial promise (promise to help). In Study 3, 5-year-olds trusted a speaker, who kept a prosocial promise, over a helper. These data suggest that from the age of 5 children show selective trust in others' promises using prosociality, promise keeping, or both to inform their judgments.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 55%

Children's Selective Trust in Promises

2018

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“…On one view, children’s selective trust in testimony is conceptualized as a rational inference based on a range of evidence about an agent’s knowledge and intent [ 18 – 20 ]. This ‘evidential’ approach has launched a set of important questions regarding children’s abilities to use evidence (both positive and negative) to mitigate testimonial risks (for reviews, see[ 21 , 22 ]). However, a dimension lost by focusing on the evidentiary value of testimony are the various interpersonal reasons that testimony provides to addressees to trust an agent.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Varieties of trust in preschoolers’ learning and practical decisions

Pesch

Koenig

2018

PLoS ONE

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Keeping commitments to others can be difficult, and we know that people sometimes fail to keep them. How does a speaker’s ability to keep commitments affect children’s practical decisions to trust and their epistemic decisions to learn? An amassing body of research documents children’s trust in testimonial learning decisions, which can be moved in the face of epistemic and moral evidence about an agent. However, other bases for trust go largely unexplored in this literature, such as interpersonal reasons to trust. Here, we investigated how direct bids for interpersonal trust in the form of making commitments, or obligations to the listener, influence a range of decisions toward that agent. We found that 3- and 4-year-olds’ (N = 75) practical decisions to wait and to share were moved as a function of a person’s commitment-keeping ability, but epistemic decisions to learn were not. Keeping one’s commitments may provide children with interpersonal reasons to trust, reasons that may function in ways distinct from the considerations that bear on accepting a claim.

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“…Critically when children's prior knowledge of a concept is low, they are more likely to rely on testimony to address gaps in their understanding (e.g., Masson et al, 2011). In deciding who to ask questions of and accept testimony from, children monitor a variety of epistemic and social characteristics for other indicators of competence when they lack the relevant knowledge necessary to directly evaluate an informant's testimony (Stephens et al, 2015).…”

Section: Children's Informant Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Low prior knowledge means children are more likely to rely on informant testimony (Masson et al, 2011;Stephens et al, 2015) The more confident children are in their self-generated beliefs, the less likely they accept testimony from others (Karmiloff-Smith & Inhelder, 1974;Shtulman, 2017) may be more inclined than children under the age of 5 years to trust the testimony of a human informant if they observe that informant predominately providing accurate information.…”

Section: Child Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When children lack information about an informant's morality, they use familiarity or group membership to determine competence, as individuals often ascribe moral warmth to familiar or in-group members (Fiske et al, 2007;Stephens et al, 2015). For example, young children typically endorse testimony from a parent relative to a stranger (Corriveau et al, 2009(Corriveau et al, , 2009 and a native-accented, conventionally speaking informant relative to a foreign-accented, nonconventionally speaking informant (Corriveau et al, 2011;Kinzler et al, 2011).…”

Section: Morality and Likenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Who is more trustworthy, Alexa or mom?: Children’s selective trust in a digital age.

Murray¹

2021

Technology, Mind, and Behavior

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Children obtain much of their early knowledge informally through first-hand observations (e.g., children as little scientists). Though the "little scientist" approach has a strong history within cognitive development, a newer perspective suggests it is not only independent observation of the environment through which children learn but also by posing questions to trustworthy individuals around them. Now, in a digital age, children can inform their understanding of the world by asking questions not only of adults but also of digital agents who are able to scour the internet and provide quick responses to children's questions. As a result of voicesearch functionalities typically present in digital voice assistants (DVAs; e.g., Alexa), children can query the internet at an earlier age, sidestepping literacy-based prerequisite skills needed for traditional computer search engines. This review examines several child-level and technology-level factors that may influence children's trust in DVAs relative to human informants. No work has combined these lines of inquiry in a way that has extended social (i.e., confidence, benevolence) and epistemic characteristics (i.e., accuracy, expertise) used in human-to-human interaction to digital voice assistant-to-human interaction. Results suggest DVS do not yet meet children's expectations for a trustworthy informant, providing implications to improve DVA functionality for young users.

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Early Testimonial Learning

Cited by 19 publications

References 108 publications

Children's Selective Trust in Promises

Children's Selective Trust in Promises

Varieties of trust in preschoolers’ learning and practical decisions

Who is more trustworthy, Alexa or mom?: Children’s selective trust in a digital age.

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