title: When do children exhibit a "yes" bias?
abstract: This study investigated whether one hundred and thirty-five 3- to 6-year-old children exhibit a yes bias to various yes-no questions and whether their knowledge status affects the production of a yes bias. Three-year-olds exhibited a yes bias to all yes-no questions such as preference-object and knowledge-object questions pertaining to objects, and knowledge-face questions pertaining to facial expressions. Four-year-olds tended to say "yes" only to knowledge-object questions. Five-year-olds did not show any strong response tendency. Six-year-olds exhibited a nay-saying bias to knowledge-face questions. Also, 3-year-olds could indicate the correct option when asked questions with 2 response options. It suggested that 3-year-olds tended to inappropriately say "yes" to yes-no questions, although they knew the answers to the questions. The mechanism of a yes bias was discussed.
authors.affiliation: Mako Okanda, Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Yoshida-honmachi, Sakyo, Kyoto 606 8501, Japan. mako-okanda@l03.mbox.media.kyoto-u.ac.jp
authors.forename: Mako
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Okanda
authors.forename: Shoji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Itakura
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002755:Choice Behavior; D032882:Comprehension; D003210:Concept Formation; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D007564:Japan; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D012660:Semantics; D013239:Stereotyped Behavior; D014705:Verbal Behavior