Children’s exploratory play tracks the discriminability of hypotheses
Effective curiosity-driven learning requires recognizing that the value of evidence for testing hypotheses depends on what other hypotheses are under consideration. Do we intuitively represent the discriminability of hypotheses? Here we show children alternative hypotheses for the contents of a box...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138318 |
| _version_ | 1811071169199079424 |
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| author | Siegel, Max H Magid, Rachel W Pelz, Madeline Tenenbaum, Joshua B Schulz, Laura E |
| author2 | Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines |
| author_facet | Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines Siegel, Max H Magid, Rachel W Pelz, Madeline Tenenbaum, Joshua B Schulz, Laura E |
| author_sort | Siegel, Max H |
| collection | MIT |
| description | Effective curiosity-driven learning requires recognizing that the value of evidence for testing hypotheses depends on what other hypotheses are under consideration. Do we intuitively represent the discriminability of hypotheses? Here we show children alternative hypotheses for the contents of a box and then shake the box (or allow children to shake it themselves) so they can hear the sound of the contents. We find that children are able to compare the evidence they hear with imagined evidence they do not hear but might have heard under alternative hypotheses. Children (N = 160; mean: 5 years and 4 months) prefer easier discriminations (Experiments 1-3) and explore longer given harder ones (Experiments 4-7). Across 16 contrasts, children’s exploration time quantitatively tracks the discriminability of heard evidence from an unheard alternative. The results are consistent with the idea that children have an “intuitive psychophysics”: children represent their own perceptual abilities and explore longer when hypotheses are harder to distinguish. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:47:06Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/138318 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T08:47:06Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1383182023-01-30T16:44:26Z Children’s exploratory play tracks the discriminability of hypotheses Siegel, Max H Magid, Rachel W Pelz, Madeline Tenenbaum, Joshua B Schulz, Laura E Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences Effective curiosity-driven learning requires recognizing that the value of evidence for testing hypotheses depends on what other hypotheses are under consideration. Do we intuitively represent the discriminability of hypotheses? Here we show children alternative hypotheses for the contents of a box and then shake the box (or allow children to shake it themselves) so they can hear the sound of the contents. We find that children are able to compare the evidence they hear with imagined evidence they do not hear but might have heard under alternative hypotheses. Children (N = 160; mean: 5 years and 4 months) prefer easier discriminations (Experiments 1-3) and explore longer given harder ones (Experiments 4-7). Across 16 contrasts, children’s exploration time quantitatively tracks the discriminability of heard evidence from an unheard alternative. The results are consistent with the idea that children have an “intuitive psychophysics”: children represent their own perceptual abilities and explore longer when hypotheses are harder to distinguish. 2021-12-03T20:02:03Z 2021-12-03T20:02:03Z 2021 2021-12-03T19:59:22Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138318 Siegel, Max H, Magid, Rachel W, Pelz, Madeline, Tenenbaum, Joshua B and Schulz, Laura E. 2021. "Children’s exploratory play tracks the discriminability of hypotheses." Nature Communications, 12 (1). en 10.1038/S41467-021-23431-2 Nature Communications Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Springer Science and Business Media LLC Nature |
| spellingShingle | Siegel, Max H Magid, Rachel W Pelz, Madeline Tenenbaum, Joshua B Schulz, Laura E Children’s exploratory play tracks the discriminability of hypotheses |
| title | Children’s exploratory play tracks the discriminability of hypotheses |
| title_full | Children’s exploratory play tracks the discriminability of hypotheses |
| title_fullStr | Children’s exploratory play tracks the discriminability of hypotheses |
| title_full_unstemmed | Children’s exploratory play tracks the discriminability of hypotheses |
| title_short | Children’s exploratory play tracks the discriminability of hypotheses |
| title_sort | children s exploratory play tracks the discriminability of hypotheses |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138318 |
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