ERIC Number: EJ1263773
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020-Sep
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1467-7687
EISSN: N/A
"I Don't Know but I Know Who to Ask": 12-Month-Olds Actively Seek Information from Knowledgeable Adults
Developmental Science, v23 n5 e12938 Sep 2020
Active social communication is an effective way for infants to learn about the world. Do pre-verbal and pre-pointing infants seek epistemic information from their social partners when motivated to obtain information they cannot discover independently? The present study investigated whether 12-month-olds (N = 30) selectively seek information from knowledgeable adults in situations of referential uncertainty. In a live experiment, infants were introduced to two unfamiliar adults, an Informant (reliably labeling objects) and a Non-Informant (equally socially engaging, but ignorant about object labels). At test, infants were asked to make an impossible choice--locate a novel referent among two novel objects. When facing epistemic uncertainty--but not at other phases of the procedure--infants selectively referred to the Informant rather than the Non-Informant. These results show that pre-verbal infants use social referencing to actively and selectively seek information from social partners as part of their interrogative communicative toolkit.
Descriptors: Infants, Information Seeking, Infant Behavior, Interpersonal Communication, Epistemology, Nonverbal Communication, Learning Processes
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2191/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
IES Publication: https://osf.io/dj9cn/?view_only=72b0e95b5ab144cc85ab07f8a04839f2