Preschool-Aged Children Can Infer What Speakers Know Based on How They Influence Others
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- How do we know what others know? Prior work has examined how children use evidence about isolated agents, like their perceptual access and actions, to infer what they know. However, humans are rarely fully isolated; instead, we are often surrounded by others whom we interact with, influence, and are influenced by. In these contexts, we can use a speaker’s communication and the way it causes a listener to behave to infer what that speaker knows - even if we do not know the specific content of what was communicated. The present studies investigated how preschool-aged children use two pieces of evidence about listeners to reason about what speakers know: changes in the outcomes of a listener’s actions following communication (Study 1) and changes in a listener’s actions themselves following communication (Study 2). In both studies, children observed two scenarios where a listener failed to activate a toy before succeeding. In Study 1, children observed a speaker produce nonsense language towards a listener after they failed but before they succeeded to activate a toy, as well as another speaker who spoke to a listener prior to initial failure. In Study 2, children observed a speaker communicate with a listener before a distinct change in action, followed by success, as well as another speaker who communicated with a listener resulting in no distinct change in action, followed by success. When asked which speaker knows how to make the toy work, 5 year-olds chose the speaker who appeared to cause the listener to succeed (Study 1) or change their action (Study 2). These results suggest that preschool-aged children are sensitive to the way speakers influence others via communication and can use evidence of that influence to infer what speakers know. More broadly, these studies highlight children’s ability to reason about the knowledge of one agent (a speaker) based primarily on evidence about another agent (a listener).
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | June 3, 2022 |
| Date modified | December 5, 2022 |
| Publication date | July 26, 2022; June 3, 2022 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Sparks, Robert |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor | Gweon, Hyowon |
| Thesis advisor | Chuey, Aaron |
Subjects
| Subject | Cognitive Development |
|---|---|
| Subject | Social Cognition |
| Subject | Theory of Mind |
| Subject | Child Development |
| Genre | Text |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
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- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal license (CC0).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- Sparks, R., Gweon, H., and Chuey, A. (2022). Preschool-Aged Children Can Infer What Speakers Know Based on How They Influence Others. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/xx316hn9817
Collection
Undergraduate Honors Theses, Symbolic Systems Program, Stanford University
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- bsparks@stanford.edu
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