Journal
CHILD DEVELOPMENT
Volume 90, Issue 1, Pages e148-e164Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13059
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Funding
- Varieties of Understanding grant from the Fordham University
- John Templeton Foundation
- NSF STC [CCF-1231216]
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This study investigated whether children learn from exploration and act as effective informants by providing informative demonstrations tailored to observers' goals and competence. Children (4.0-6.9 years, N = 98) explored a causally ambiguous toy to discover its causal structure and then demonstrated the toy to a naive observer. Children provided more costly and informative evidence when the observer wanted to learn about the toy than observe its effects (Experiment 1) and when the observer was ordinary than exceptionally intelligent (Experiment 2). Relative to the evidence they generated during exploration, children produced fewer, less costly actions when the observer wanted or needed less evidence. Children understand the difference between acting-to-learn and acting-to-inform; after learning from exploration, they consider others' goals and competence to provide uninstructed instruction.
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