Information Overload? The Relations between source monitoring, evaluation, and executive function processes in children

我们的指尖从未有过如此多的信息。一个快速的互联网搜索通常会提供2-3个相关的网站，我们整合我们阅读的信息，并将这些新知识用于某些目的。然而，有些网站并不是可靠的信息来源，这并不奇怪。同样的道理也适用于书籍、报纸、同事等等，我们必须确保自己的思想不被来自不可信来源的信息所污染。然而，我们经常忘记或混淆信息的来源，这威胁到我们知识的可靠性。从3岁左右开始，孩子逐渐学会如何注意知识来源，如何判断信息来源。我们的研究重点是几个思维过程的发展，这些思维过程受到额叶（大脑的推理部分）发展的影响，对“源监控”至关重要。我们让3至14岁的儿童接触不同的信息来源，看看他们的记忆力、推理能力、对信息来源可信度的判断以及控制思想和注意力的能力如何影响他们监控信息来源的方式。重要的是，孩子和成年人能够反思他们从哪里学到的信息，这样我们就可以从我们的知识库中“编辑”不可靠的信息。除了提高我们对源监测发展的理解外，这项研究还可以用来回答许多其他领域的基础研究问题，特别是在人口老龄化方面。例如，为什么老化会导致源头监控的缺陷？为什么老年人经常向同一来源提供相同的信息？目前对信息来源的狂轰滥炸不太可能很快消失。因此，我们必须学会如何成为信息的聪明和积极的消费者，以保护我们知识的可靠性。

Never before has there been so much information at our fingertips. A quick internet search often provides 2-3 relevant websites, we integrate the information we read, and put this new knowledge towards some purpose. It is not surprising, however, that some websites are not reliable sources of information. The same can be said for books, newspapers, co-workers, and so on. It is necessary to ensure that we do not contaminate our minds with information from untrustworthy sources. Yet, we often forget or confuse the sources of information and this threatens the reliability of our knowledge. From around age 3, children gradually learn how to pay attention to knowledge sources and how to determine the source of information. Our research focuses on the development of several thought processes known to be influenced by the development of the frontal lobe (the reasoning part of the brain) and critical to ‘source monitoring'. We expose children aged 3- to 14-years old to different sources of information and see how their memory, reasoning skills, judgment of source credibility, and ability to control their thoughts and attention affects the way they monitor the sources of information. It is important that children, and adults, are able to reflect on where they learned information so that we can ‘edit out' unreliable information from our knowledge base. As well as improving our understanding of the development of source monitoring, the research can also be used to answer basic research questions in many other areas, especially in an aging population. For example, Why does aging lead to deficits in source monitoring? Why do seniors often provide the same information to the same source? The current bombardment of sources of information is not likely to disappear soon. Thus, we must learn how to be intelligent and active consumers of information to protect the reliability of our knowledge.