Children and adults differ in their strategies for social learning

Falk Lieder, Zi Lin Sim, Jane C. Hu, Thomas L. Griffiths, Fei Xu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Adults and children rely heavily on other people's testimony. However, domains of knowledge where there is no consensus on the truth are likely to result in conflicting testimonies. Previous research has demonstrated that in these cases, learners look towards the majority opinion to make decisions. However, it remains unclear how learners evaluate social information, given that considering either the overall valence, or the number of testimonies, or both may lead to different conclusions. We therefore formalized several social learning strategies and compared them to the performance of adults and children. We find that children use different strategies than adults. This suggests that the development of social learning may involve the acquisition of cognitive strategies.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2015
EditorsDavid C. Noelle, Rick Dale, Anne Warlaumont, Jeff Yoshimi, Teenie Matlock, Carolyn D. Jennings, Paul P. Maglio
PublisherThe Cognitive Science Society
Pages1368-1373
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9780991196722
StatePublished - 2015
Externally publishedYes
Event37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Mind, Technology, and Society, CogSci 2015 - Pasadena, United States
Duration: Jul 23 2015Jul 25 2015

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2015

Conference

Conference37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Mind, Technology, and Society, CogSci 2015
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPasadena
Period7/23/157/25/15

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

Keywords

  • Bayesian models
  • cognitive development
  • decision-making
  • probabilistic reasoning
  • social learning

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