The Development of Children's Attributions of Knowledge

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The proposed research investigates a basic human capacityour ability to recognize whether others have knowledge. This ability is involved in many everyday activities. For example, we consider others' knowledge (and our own) when predicting others' behavior, communicating, deciding whether to assign blame, and seeking information. ******In this proposal, I outline four series of experiments that investigate the development of this ability in young children. The first series examines whether children view knowledge as a distinct mental state, or instead view it as a type of belief (i.e., one held with certainty). Answering this question will be informative about the organization of young children's representation of mental states, and about the origins of our notions of knowledge. ******The other three series of experiments examine how children attribute knowledge. All three series explore the theory that children view knowledge as stemming from direct information about the world, and that they deny knowledge when others only have indirect information. One series of experiments tests whether children are more likely to attribute knowledge to agents with specific information about a particular item than to agents whose conclusions about the item are drawn from more general information about a larger sample. This series of experiments is informed by research on people's judgment and decision-making. The next series of experiments tests whether children are more likely to attribute knowledge to agents who assert the presence of an object or property than to agents who assert its absence. This line of research connects children's knowledge attributions with cognitive research on differences between how people process affirmations and negations. The final series investigates further ways of manipulating the directness of information, and examines whether the directness theory may help explain two difficulties that children face in attributing knowledge to othersrecognizing that inferences often provide knowledge, and that ambiguous information typically does not. ******Together, these four series of experiments will be informative about the nature and development of our capacity to attribute mental states to others. This research will also increase our understanding of how children respond to different kinds of information. Finally, although this research will principally concern children's theory of mind, the findings will inform investigations of theory of mind in other populations.