Not Doing What You Are Told: Early Perseverative Errors in Updating Mental Representations via Language

This research examined the ability of young ( N  = 96) children to learn about a change in the location of a hidden object, either via an adult’s verbal testimony or from direct observation. Thirty‐month‐olds searched with equal accuracy whether they were told about the change or directly observed it. By contrast, when 23‐month‐olds were told about the change of location, they often returned to the container where they had last observed the object—even when that container was visibly empty. When interference from prior observational encoding was minimized, 23‐month‐olds, and even 19‐month‐olds, successfully updated their knowledge of the object’s location on the basis of language. The processing demands of updating experience‐based representations from new verbal information are discussed.