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Theory of mind selectively predicts preschoolers’ knowledge‐based selective word learning
Author(s) -
BrosseauLiard Patricia,
Penney Danielle,
PoulinDubois Diane
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
british journal of developmental psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.062
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 2044-835X
pISSN - 0261-510X
DOI - 10.1111/bjdp.12107
Subject(s) - psychology , theory of mind , preference , cognitive psychology , cognition , social cognition , selection (genetic algorithm) , word learning , relation (database) , developmental psychology , social psychology , linguistics , vocabulary , database , neuroscience , computer science , economics , microeconomics , philosophy , artificial intelligence
Children can selectively attend to various attributes of a model, such as past accuracy or physical strength, to guide their social learning. There is a debate regarding whether a relation exists between theory‐of‐mind skills and selective learning. We hypothesized that high performance on theory‐of‐mind tasks would predict preference for learning new words from accurate informants (an epistemic attribute), but not from physically strong informants (a non‐epistemic attribute). Three‐ and 4‐year‐olds ( N = 65) completed two selective learning tasks, and their theory‐of‐mind abilities were assessed. As expected, performance on a theory‐of‐mind battery predicted children's preference to learn from more accurate informants but not from physically stronger informants. Results thus suggest that preschoolers with more advanced theory of mind have a better understanding of knowledge and apply that understanding to guide their selection of informants. This work has important implications for research on children's developing social cognition and early learning.