Abstract
Psychological research into children’s sensitivity to testimony has primarily focused on their ability to judge the likely reliability of speakers. However, verbal testimony is only one means by which children learn from others. We review recent research exploring children’s early social referencing and imitation, as well as their sensitivity to speakers’ knowledge, beliefs, and biases, to argue that children treat information and informants with reasonable scepticism. As children’s understanding of mental states develops, they become ever more able to critically evaluate whether to believe new information.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Birch, S.A.J., S.A. Vauthier, and P. Bloom. 2008. Three- and four-year-olds spontaneously use others’ past performance to guide their learning. Cognition 107: 1018–1034.
Brugger, A., L.A. Lariviere, D.L. Mumme, and E.W. Bushnell. 2007. Doing the right thing: Infants’ selection of actions to imitate from observed event sequences. Child Development 78: 806–824.
Chouinard, M. (2007). Children’s questions: A mechanism for cognitive development. Monographs of the society for research in child development. Serial no. 296, vol 72, no 1. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5834.2007.00413.x.
Csibra, G., and G. Gergely. 2005. Social learning and social cognition: The case for pedagogy. In Processes of change in brain and cognitive development. Attention and performance XXI, ed. M.H. Johnson and Y. Munakatas, 249–274. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Davidson, D. 1984. Inquiries into truth and interpretation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dummett, M. 1973. Frege: Philosophy of language. London: Duckworth.
Gee, C.L., and G.D. Heyman. 2007. Children’s evaluation of other people’s self-descriptions. Social Development 16: 200–818.
Gergely, G., and G. Csibra. 2005. The social construction of the cultural mind: Imitative learning as a mechanism of human pedagogy. Interaction Studies 6: 463–481.
Gergely, G., H. Bekkering, and I. Kiraly. 2002. Rational imitation in preverbal infants. Nature 415: 755.
Harris, P.L. 2007. Trust. Developmental Science 10: 135–138.
Jaswal, V.K., and L.A. Neely. 2006. Adults don’t always know best: Preschoolers use past reliability over age when learning new words. Psychological Science 17: 757–758.
Koenig, M.A., and C.H. Echols. 2003. Infants’ understanding of false labelling events: The referential roles of words and the speakers who use them. Cognition 87: 179–208.
Koenig, M.A., and P.L. Harris. 2005. Preschoolers mistrust ignorant and inaccurate speakers. Child Development 76: 1261–1277.
Koenig, M.A., and P.L. Harris. 2007. The basis of epistemic trust: Reliable testimony or reliable sources? Episteme 4: 264–283.
Koenig, M.A., F. Clement, and P.L. Harris. 2004. Trust in testimony: Children's use of true and false statements. Psychological Science 15: 694–698.
Meltzoff, A.N. 1988. Infant imitation after a one week delay: Long term memory for novel acts and multiple stimuli. Developmental Psychology 24: 470–476.
Mills, C.M., and F.C. Keil. 2005. The development of cynicism. Psychological Science 16: 385–390.
Nurmsoo, E., and E.J. Robinson. 2009a. Children's trust in previously inaccurate informants who were well or poorly informed: When past errors can be excused. Child Development 80: 23–27.
Nurmsoo, E., and E.J. Robinson. 2009b. Identifying unreliable informants: Do children excuse past inaccuracy? Developmental Science 12: 41–47.
Pasquini, E.S., K.H. Corriveau, M. Koenig, and P.L. Harris. 2007. Preschoolers monitor the relative accuracy of informants. Developmental Psychology 43: 1216–1226.
Pea, R.D. 1982. Origins of verbal logic: Spontaneous denials by two- and three-year-olds. Journal of Child Language 9: 597–626.
Robinson, E.J., and E. Nurmsoo. 2009. When do children learn from unreliable speakers? Cognitive Development 24: 16–22.
Robinson, E.J., and E.L. Whitcombe. 2003. Children’s suggestibility in relation to their understanding about sources of knowledge. Child Development 74: 48–62.
Robinson, E.J., S.N. Haigh, and E. Nurmsoo. 2008. Children’s working understanding of knowledge sources: Confidence in knowledge gained from testimony. Cognitive Development 23: 105–118.
Robinson, E.J., S.A. Butterfill, and E. Nurmsoo. in press. Gaining knowledge via other minds: Children’s flexible trust in others as sources of information. British Journal of Developmental Psychology.
Scofield, J., and D.A. Behrend. 2008. Learning words from reliable and unreliable speakers. Cognitive Development 23: 278–290.
Sorce, J.F., R.N. Emde, J. Campos, and M.D. Klinnert. 1985. Maternal emotional signalling: Its effect on the visual cliff behavior of 1-year-olds. Developmental Psychology 21: 195–200.
Tamis-LeMonda, C.S., K.E. Adolph, S.A. Lobo, L.B. Karasik, S. Ishak, and K.A. Dimitropoulou. 2008. When infants take mothers’ advice: 18-month-olds integrate perceptual and social information to guide motor action. Developmental Psychology 44: 734–746.
Whitcombe, E.L., and E.J. Robinson. 2000. Children’s decisions about what to believe and their ability to report the source of their belief. Cognitive Development 15: 329–346.
Zarbatany, L., and M.E. Lamb. 1985. Social referencing as a function of information source: Mothers versus strangers. Infant Behavior & Development 8: 25–33.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Christophe Heintz and two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments. The research was supported by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council, U.K. (RES-000-22-1847) to the second author.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nurmsoo, E., Robinson, E.J. & Butterfill, S.A. Children’s Selective Learning from Others. Rev.Phil.Psych. 1, 551–561 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-010-0043-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13164-010-0043-y