The Development of Children's Attributions of Knowledge

这项拟议中的研究调查了一种基本的人类能力--你识别他人是否知情的能力。这种能力在许多日常活动中都有涉及。例如，我们在预测他人的行为、沟通、决定是否指责他人以及寻求信息时，都会考虑他人的知识(以及我们自己的知识)。 在这份提案中，我概述了四个系列的实验，这些实验旨在研究幼儿这种能力的发展。第一个系列考察了儿童是将知识视为一种独特的精神状态，还是将其视为一种信念(即，一种确定性的信念)。回答这个问题将有助于了解幼儿代表心理状态的组织方式，以及我们的知识概念的起源。 其他三个系列的实验考察了儿童如何对知识进行归因。这三个系列都探索了一种理论，即儿童将知识视为源于关于世界的直接信息，而当其他人只有间接信息时，他们拒绝接受知识。一系列实验测试了儿童是否更有可能将知识归因于拥有特定物品特定信息的代理人，而不是那些从更大样本的更一般信息中得出关于该物品的结论的代理人。这一系列实验是通过对人们的判断和决策进行研究而得出的。接下来的一系列实验测试儿童是否更有可能将知识归因于断言物体或财产存在的代理人，而不是断言其不存在的代理人。这一系列研究将儿童的知识归因与认知研究联系起来，研究人们如何处理肯定和否定的差异。最后一个系列进一步探讨了操纵信息的直接性的方法，并考察了直接性理论是否有助于解释儿童在将知识归因于他人时面临的两个困难-认识到推理通常提供知识，而模糊的信息通常不提供。 加在一起，这四个系列的实验将对我们将心理状态归因于他人的能力的性质和发展提供信息。这项研究还将增加我们对儿童对不同类型信息的反应的理解。最后，虽然这项研究将主要关注儿童的心理理论，但研究结果将为其他人群的心理理论研究提供参考。

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.