Changing minds: Children's inferences about third party belief revision
By the age of 5, children explicitly represent that agents can have both true and false beliefs based on epistemic access to information (e.g., Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). Children also begin to understand that agents can view identical evidence and draw different inferences from it (e.g....
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Wiley Blackwell
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112321 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1767-3247 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4510-3145 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1925-2035 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2981-8039 |
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| author | Magid, Rachel Yan, Phyllis L. Siegel, Max Harmon Tenenbaum, Joshua B Schulz, Laura E |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Magid, Rachel Yan, Phyllis L. Siegel, Max Harmon Tenenbaum, Joshua B Schulz, Laura E |
| author_sort | Magid, Rachel |
| collection | MIT |
| description | By the age of 5, children explicitly represent that agents can have both true and false beliefs based on epistemic access to information (e.g., Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). Children also begin to understand that agents can view identical evidence and draw different inferences from it (e.g., Carpendale & Chandler, 1996). However, much less is known about when, and under what conditions, children expect other agents to change their minds. Here, inspired by formal ideal observer models of learning, we investigate children's expectations of the dynamics that underlie third parties' belief revision. We introduce an agent who has prior beliefs about the location of a population of toys and then observes evidence that, from an ideal observer perspective, either does, or does not justify revising those beliefs. We show that children's inferences on behalf of third parties are consistent with the ideal observer perspective, but not with a number of alternative possibilities, including that children expect other agents to be influenced only by their prior beliefs, only by the sampling process, or only by the observed data. Rather, children integrate all three factors in determining how and when agents will update their beliefs from evidence. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:45:05Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/112321 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T14:45:05Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Wiley Blackwell |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1123212022-10-01T22:16:51Z Changing minds: Children's inferences about third party belief revision Magid, Rachel Yan, Phyllis L. Siegel, Max Harmon Tenenbaum, Joshua B Schulz, Laura E Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Magid, Rachel Yan, Phyllis L. Siegel, Max Harmon Tenenbaum, Joshua B Schulz, Laura E By the age of 5, children explicitly represent that agents can have both true and false beliefs based on epistemic access to information (e.g., Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). Children also begin to understand that agents can view identical evidence and draw different inferences from it (e.g., Carpendale & Chandler, 1996). However, much less is known about when, and under what conditions, children expect other agents to change their minds. Here, inspired by formal ideal observer models of learning, we investigate children's expectations of the dynamics that underlie third parties' belief revision. We introduce an agent who has prior beliefs about the location of a population of toys and then observes evidence that, from an ideal observer perspective, either does, or does not justify revising those beliefs. We show that children's inferences on behalf of third parties are consistent with the ideal observer perspective, but not with a number of alternative possibilities, including that children expect other agents to be influenced only by their prior beliefs, only by the sampling process, or only by the observed data. Rather, children integrate all three factors in determining how and when agents will update their beliefs from evidence. National Science Foundation (U.S.). Division of Computing and Communication Foundations (1231216) National Science Foundation (U.S.). Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (0744213) National Science Foundation (U.S.) (STC Center for Brains, Minds and Machines Award CCF-1231216) National Science Foundation (U.S.) (0744213) 2017-11-28T21:27:53Z 2017-11-28T21:27:53Z 2017-05 2015-12 2017-11-20T20:08:41Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1363-755X 1467-7687 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112321 Magid, Rachel W., et al. “Changing Minds: Children’s Inferences about Third Party Belief Revision.” Developmental Science, May 2017, p. e12553. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1767-3247 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4510-3145 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1925-2035 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2981-8039 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/desc.12553 Developmental Science Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ application/pdf Wiley Blackwell Wiley |
| spellingShingle | Magid, Rachel Yan, Phyllis L. Siegel, Max Harmon Tenenbaum, Joshua B Schulz, Laura E Changing minds: Children's inferences about third party belief revision |
| title | Changing minds: Children's inferences about third party belief revision |
| title_full | Changing minds: Children's inferences about third party belief revision |
| title_fullStr | Changing minds: Children's inferences about third party belief revision |
| title_full_unstemmed | Changing minds: Children's inferences about third party belief revision |
| title_short | Changing minds: Children's inferences about third party belief revision |
| title_sort | changing minds children s inferences about third party belief revision |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112321 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1767-3247 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4510-3145 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1925-2035 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2981-8039 |
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