What is a good question asker better at? From no generalization, to overgeneralization, to adults-like selectivity across childhood

Costanza De Simone, Azzurra Ruggeri

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Prior research showed that young children prefer to seek help from actors who have demonstrated active learning competence. What inferences do people make based on the ability to search effectively, for example by asking informative questions? This project explores across two experiments to what extent adults and children (3- to 9-year-olds) generalize the ability to ask informative questions to other abilities/characteristics. We presented participants with one monster who always asked informative questions and one who always asked uninformative questions. Participants had to choose which monster they thought was more likely to possess/was better at 12 different characteristics/abilities. Our results show a clear developmental trend. Three- and 4-year-olds draw unsystematic inferences from the monsters question-asking expertise. Five- and 6-year-olds identified the better question asker as better at everything. Seven- to 9-year-olds showed adult-like response patterns, selectively associating the ability to ask good questions to related characteristics/abilities.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Subtitle of host publicationCreativity + Cognition + Computation, CogSci 2019
PublisherThe Cognitive Science Society
Pages1613-1619
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)0991196775, 9780991196777
StatePublished - 2019
Event41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Creativity + Cognition + Computation, CogSci 2019 - Montreal, Canada
Duration: 24 Jul 201927 Jul 2019

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Creativity + Cognition + Computation, CogSci 2019

Conference

Conference41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Creativity + Cognition + Computation, CogSci 2019
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityMontreal
Period24/07/1927/07/19

Keywords

  • active learning
  • question asking
  • social cognition

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