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Extending the Testimony Problem: Evaluating the Truth, Scope, and Source of Cultural Information
Author(s) -
Bergstrom Brian,
Moehlmann Bianca,
Boyer Pascal
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00888.x
Subject(s) - psychology , scope (computer science) , cognition , cognitive development , child development , developmental science , cognitive science , cognitive psychology , epistemology , social psychology , computer science , developmental psychology , philosophy , neuroscience , programming language
Children's learning—in the domains of science and religion specifically, but in many other cultural domains as well—relies extensively on testimony and other forms of culturally transmitted information. The cognitive processes that enable such learning must also administrate the evaluation, qualification, and storage of that information, while guarding against the dangers of false or misleading input. Currently, the development of these appraisal processes is not clearly understood. Recent work, reviewed here, has begun to address three important dimensions of the problem: how children and adults evaluate truth in communication, how they gauge the inferential potential of information, and how they encode and evaluate its source .