Development of children’s sensitivity to overinformativeness in learning and teaching.
Effective communication requires knowing the "right" amount of information to provide; what is necessary for a naïve learner to arrive at a target hypothesis may be superfluous and inefficient for a knowledgeable learner. The current study examines 4- to 7-year-olds' developing sensit...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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American Psychological Association (APA)
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129603 |
| _version_ | 1826214505982459904 |
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| author | Gweon, Hyowon Shafto, Patrick 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 Gweon, Hyowon Shafto, Patrick Schulz, Laura E |
| author_sort | Gweon, Hyowon |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Effective communication requires knowing the "right" amount of information to provide; what is necessary for a naïve learner to arrive at a target hypothesis may be superfluous and inefficient for a knowledgeable learner. The current study examines 4- to 7-year-olds' developing sensitivity to overinformative communication and their ability to decide how much information is appropriate depending on the learner's prior knowledge. In Experiment 1 (N = 184, age = 4.09 -7.98 years), 5- to 7-year-old children preferred teachers who gave costly, exhaustive demonstrations when learners were naïve, but preferred teachers who gave efficient, selective demonstrations when learners were already knowledgeable given their prior experience (i.e., common ground). However, 4-year-olds did not show a clear preference. In Experiment 2 (N = 80, age = 4.05- 6.99 years), we asked whether children flexibly modulated their own teaching based on learners' knowledge. Five and 6-year-olds, but not 4-year-olds, were more likely to provide exhaustive demonstrations to naïve learners than to knowledgeable learners. These results suggest that by 5 years of age, children are sensitive to overinformativeness and understand the trade-off between informativeness and efficiency; they reason about what others know based on the presence or absence of common ground and flexibly decide how much information is appropriate both as learners and as teachers. ©2018 American Psychological Association. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:06:49Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/129603 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T16:06:49Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | American Psychological Association (APA) |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1296032022-09-29T18:17:29Z Development of children’s sensitivity to overinformativeness in learning and teaching. Gweon, Hyowon Shafto, Patrick Schulz, Laura E Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Effective communication requires knowing the "right" amount of information to provide; what is necessary for a naïve learner to arrive at a target hypothesis may be superfluous and inefficient for a knowledgeable learner. The current study examines 4- to 7-year-olds' developing sensitivity to overinformative communication and their ability to decide how much information is appropriate depending on the learner's prior knowledge. In Experiment 1 (N = 184, age = 4.09 -7.98 years), 5- to 7-year-old children preferred teachers who gave costly, exhaustive demonstrations when learners were naïve, but preferred teachers who gave efficient, selective demonstrations when learners were already knowledgeable given their prior experience (i.e., common ground). However, 4-year-olds did not show a clear preference. In Experiment 2 (N = 80, age = 4.05- 6.99 years), we asked whether children flexibly modulated their own teaching based on learners' knowledge. Five and 6-year-olds, but not 4-year-olds, were more likely to provide exhaustive demonstrations to naïve learners than to knowledgeable learners. These results suggest that by 5 years of age, children are sensitive to overinformativeness and understand the trade-off between informativeness and efficiency; they reason about what others know based on the presence or absence of common ground and flexibly decide how much information is appropriate both as learners and as teachers. ©2018 American Psychological Association. NSF grant (DRL-1149116) Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, funded by NSF STC award (CCF-1231216) 2021-01-29T23:56:36Z 2021-01-29T23:56:36Z 2018-11 2018-05 2019-10-04T11:07:15Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 1939-0599 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129603 Gweon, Hyowon et al., "Development of children’s sensitivity to overinformativeness in learning and teaching." Developmental Psychology 54, 11 (November 2018): 2113–25 ©2018 Authors en https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/DEV0000580 Developmental Psychology Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf American Psychological Association (APA) other univ website |
| spellingShingle | Gweon, Hyowon Shafto, Patrick Schulz, Laura E Development of children’s sensitivity to overinformativeness in learning and teaching. |
| title | Development of children’s sensitivity to overinformativeness in learning and teaching. |
| title_full | Development of children’s sensitivity to overinformativeness in learning and teaching. |
| title_fullStr | Development of children’s sensitivity to overinformativeness in learning and teaching. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Development of children’s sensitivity to overinformativeness in learning and teaching. |
| title_short | Development of children’s sensitivity to overinformativeness in learning and teaching. |
| title_sort | development of children s sensitivity to overinformativeness in learning and teaching |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/129603 |
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