Two-year-olds are vigilant of others' non-verbal cues to credibility.
Data from three experiments provide the first evidence that children, at least as young as age two, are vigilant of others' non-verbal cues to credibility, and flexibly use these cues to facilitate learning. Experiment 1 revealed that 2- and 3-year-olds prefer to learn about objects from someone who appears, through non-verbal cues, to be confident in performing actions on those objects than from someone who appears uncertain when performing actions on those objects. Experiment 2 revealed that when 2-year-olds observe only one model perform a single action, either confidently or unconfidently, they do not use the model's level of confidence in this single instance to influence their learning. Experiment 3 revealed that 2-year-olds will use a single model's level of confidence to guide their learning if they have observed that the model has a history of being either consistently confident or consistently uncertain. These findings reveal that young children selectively alter their learning based on others' non-verbal cues of credibility, and underscore the importance of an early sensitivity to socio-cognitive cues for human learning and development.
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. sbirch@psych.ubc.ca
Susan A J
SA
Birch
Nazanin
N
Akmal
Kristen L
KL
Frampton
D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D003463:Cues; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D009633:Nonverbal Communication / Q000523:psychology*