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“I don't know but I know who to ask”: 12‐month‐olds actively seek information from knowledgeable adults
Author(s) -
Bazhydai Marina,
Westermann Gert,
Parise Eugenio
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/desc.12938
Subject(s) - referent , psychology , interrogative , object (grammar) , theory of mind , social cognition , ask price , social psychology , nonverbal communication , test (biology) , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , cognition , linguistics , paleontology , philosophy , economy , neuroscience , economics , biology
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.