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

以前从未有如此多的信息在我们的指尖。一个快速的互联网搜索通常会提供2-3个相关的网站，我们会整合我们读到的信息，并将这些新知识用于某种目的。然而，一些网站并不是可靠的信息来源，这并不令人惊讶。同样的道理也适用于书籍、报纸、同事等。有必要确保我们的头脑不会受到来自不可靠来源的信息的污染。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，孩子们逐渐学会了如何关注知识来源以及如何确定信息来源。我们的研究集中在几个已知受额叶(大脑的推理部分)发展影响的思维过程的发展，并对来源监控至关重要。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、推理技能、来源可信度判断以及控制他们的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，儿童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出不可靠的信息。除了提高我们对源头监测发展的理解外，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，为什么老龄化会导致源头监测出现缺陷？为什么高年级学生经常向同一来源提供相同的信息？目前对信息源的轰炸不太可能很快消失。因此，我们必须学会如何成为聪明和积极的信息消费者，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.