Flexible decision-strategy improvements in children

Li, Amy X.; Wenke, Dorit; Ay, Destina S.; Löwe, Anika; Gaschler, Robert; Shing, Yee Lee

doi:10.31234/osf.io/bcpwj

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 47 publications

(60 reference statements)

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“…It may be the case then that developmental improvements in metacognitive monitoring similarly support strategy adjustments over the course of active causal learning tasks. While children can discover and implement new response strategies in some contexts (Schuck et al, 2019), it is unclear whether they can guide their own strategy improvements during active causal learning. Prior studies have not addressed this question, in large part because many developmental studies of causal learning have used only a small number of trials.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal Information‐Seeking Strategies Change Across Childhood and Adolescence

et al. 2020

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Intervening on causal systems can illuminate their underlying structures. Past work has shown that, relative to adults, young children often make intervention decisions that appear to confirm a single hypothesis rather than those that optimally discriminate alternative hypotheses. Here, we investigated how the ability to make informative causal interventions changes across development. Ninety participants between the ages of 7 and 25 completed 40 different puzzles in which they had to intervene on various causal systems to determine their underlying structures. Each puzzle comprised a three‐ or four‐node computer chip with hidden wires. On each trial, participants viewed two possible arrangements of the chip's hidden wires and had to select a single node to activate. After observing the outcome of their intervention, participants selected a wire configuration and rated their confidence in their selection. We characterized participant choices with a Bayesian measurement model that indexed the extent to which participants selected nodes that would best disambiguate the two possible causal structures versus those that had high causal centrality in one of the two causal hypotheses but did not necessarily discriminate between them. Our model estimates revealed that the use of a discriminatory strategy increased through early adolescence. Further, developmental improvements in intervention strategy were related to changes in the ability to accurately judge the strength of evidence that interventions revealed, as indexed by participants' confidence in their selections. Our results suggest that improvements in causal information‐seeking extend into adolescence and may be driven by metacognitive sensitivity to the efficacy of previous interventions in discriminating competing ideas.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal Information‐Seeking Strategies Change Across Childhood and Adolescence

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It may be the case then that developmental improvements in metacognitive monitoring similarly support strategy adjustments over the course of active causal learning tasks. While children can discover and implement new response strategies in some contexts (Schuck et al, 2019), it is unclear if they can guide their own strategy improvements during active causal learning. Prior studies have not addressed this question, in large part because many developmental studies of causal learning have used only a small number of trials.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal information-seeking strategies change across childhood and adolescence

Nussenbaum¹,

Cohen²,

Davis³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Intervening on causal systems can illuminate their underlying structures. Past work has shown that, relative to adults, young children often make intervention decisions that appear to confirm a single hypothesis rather than those that optimally discriminate alternative hypotheses. Here, we investigated how the ability to make informative causal interventions changes across development. Ninety participants between the ages of 7 and 25 completed 40 different puzzles in which they had to intervene on various causal systems to determine their underlying structures. Each puzzle comprised a three- or four-node computer chip with hidden wires. On each trial, participants viewed two possible arrangements of the chip’s hidden wires and had to select a single node to activate. After observing whether their intervention caused other nodes to turn on, participants selected a wire configuration, and rated their confidence in their selection. We characterized participant choices with a Bayesian measurement model that indexed the extent to which participants selected nodes that would best disambiguate the two possible causal structures vs. those that elicited evidence in favor of one of the two causal hypotheses, but did not necessarily discriminate between them. Our model estimates revealed that the use of discriminatory strategies increased through early adolescence. Further, developmental improvements in intervention strategy were related to changes in the ability to accurately judge the strength of evidence that their interventions revealed, as indexed by participants’ confidence in their selections. Our results suggest that improvements in causal information-seeking extend into adolescence and may be driven by metacognitive sensitivity to the efficacy of previous interventions in discriminating competing ideas.

show abstract

Flexible decision-strategy improvements in children

Cited by 2 publications

References 47 publications

Causal Information‐Seeking Strategies Change Across Childhood and Adolescence

Causal Information‐Seeking Strategies Change Across Childhood and Adolescence

Causal information-seeking strategies change across childhood and adolescence

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