Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T06:27:33.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Basis of Epistemic Trust: Reliable Testimony or Reliable Sources?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Melissa A. Koenig  and
Paul L. Harris
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What is the nature of children's trust in testimony? Is it based primarily on evidential correlations between statements and facts, as stated by Hume, or does it derive from an interest in the trustworthiness of particular speakers? In this essay, we explore these questions in an effort to understand the developmental course and cognitive bases of children's extensive reliance on testimony. Recent work shows that, from an early age, children monitor the reliability of particular informants, differentiate between those who make true and false claims and keep that differential accuracy in mind when evaluating new information from these people. We argue that this selective trust is likely to involve the mentalistic appraisal of speakers rather than surface generalizations of their behavior. Finally, we review the significance of children's deference to adult authority on issues of naming and categorization. In addition to challenging a purely inductive account of trust, these and other findings reflect a potentially rich set of tools brought by children to the task of learning from people's testimony.

Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , October 2007 , pp. 264 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Akhtar, N., Carpenter, M., and Tomasello, M.. 1996. “The Role of Discourse Novelty in Early Word Learning.” Child Development 67: 635–45.Google Scholar
Baldwin, D. A. 1991. “Infants' Contribution to the Achievement of Joint Reference.” Child Development 62: 875–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, D. A. 1993. “Early Referential Understanding: Infants' Ability to Recognize Referential Acts for What They Are.” Developmental Psychology 29: 832–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, D. A., Markman, E., Bill, B., Desjardins, N., Irwin, J., and Tidball, G.. 1996. “Infants' Reliance on a Social Criterion for Establishing Word-Object Relations.” Child Development 67: 3135–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baldwin, D. A. and Moses, L.. 2001. “Links Between Social Understanding and Early Word Learning: Challenges to Current Accounts.” Social Development 10: 309–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartsch, K. and Wellman, H. M.. 1995. Children Talk about the Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Birch, S., Luca, S., Frampton, K., Vauthier, S., and Bloom, P.. 2005. “Children's Assessments of What Others Know: the Effects on Learning.” Poster presented at the Biannual Society for Research in Child Development, Atlanta, GA.Google Scholar
Bloom, P. 2000. How Children Learn the Meanings of Words. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Bretherton, I. and Beeghly, M.. 1982. “Talking about Internal States: The Acquisition of an Explicit Theory of Mind.” Developmental Psychology 18: 906–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ceci, S. J., Ross, D. F., and Toglia, M. P.. 1987. “Suggestibility of Children's Memory: Psycholegal Implications.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 116(1): 38–49.Google Scholar
Clark, E. V. 1993. The Lexicon in Acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, E. V. and Grossman, J. B.. 1988. “Pragmatic Directions and Children's Word Learning.” Journal of Child Language 25: 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clément, F., Koenig, M., and Harris, P. L.. 2004. “The Ontogenesis of Trust.” Mind and Language 19: 360–79.Google Scholar
Corriveau, K. H. and Harris, P. L.. In press. “Preschoolers Continue to Trust a More Accurate Informant I Week After Exposure to Accuracy Information.” Developmental Science.Google Scholar
Danovitch, J. H. and Keil, F. C.. 2004. “Should You Ask a Fisherman or a Biologist?: Developmental Shifts in Ways of Clustering Knowledge.” Child Development 75: 918–31.Google Scholar
Dawkins, R. and Krebs, J. R.. 1978. “Animal Signals: Information or Manipulation?” In Krebs, J. R. and Davies, N. B. (eds.), Behavioural Ecology: An Evolutionary Approach, pp. 282–309. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications.Google Scholar
Fenson, L., Pethick, S., Renda, C., Cox, J., Dale, P., and Reznick, S.. 2000. “Short-form Versions of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories.” Applied Psycholinguistics 21: 95–116.Google Scholar
Gelman, S. A. and Coley, J. D.. 1990. “The Importance of Knowing a Dodo Is a Bird: Categories and Inferences in 2-year-old Children.” Developmental Psychology 26: 796–804.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelman, S. A., Collman, P., and Maccoby, E. E.. 1986. “Inferring Properties from Categories versus Inferring Categories from Properties: The Case of Gender.” Child Development 57: 396–404.Google Scholar
Gelman, S. A. and Markman, E. M.. 1986. “Categories and Induction in Young Children.” Cognition 23: 183–208.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gelman, S. A. and Markman, E. M.. 1987. “Young Children's Inductions from Natural Kinds: The Role of Categories and Appearances.” Child Development 58: 1532–41.Google Scholar
Golinkoff, R. M., Mervis, C. B., and Hirsh-Pasek, K.. 1995. “Early Object Labels: The Case for a Developmental Lexical Principles Framework.” Journal of Child Language 21: 125–55.Google Scholar
Gopnik, A. and Graf, P.. 1988. “Knowing How You Know: Young Children's Ability to Identify and Remember the Sources of Their Beliefs.” Child Development 59: 1366–71.Google Scholar
Graham, S. A., Stock, H., and Henderson, A. M. E.. 2006. “Nineteen-month-olds' Understanding of the Conventionality of Object Labels versus Desires.” Infancy 9: 341–50.Google Scholar
Harris, P. L. and Koenig, M. A.. 2006. “Trust in Testimony: How Children Learn about Science and Religion.” Child Development 77: 505–24.Google Scholar
Henderson, A. M. E. and Graham, S. A.. 2005. “Two-year-olds' Appreciation of the Shared Nature of Novel Object Labels.” Journal of Cognition and Development 6: 381–402.Google Scholar
Heyman, G. D. and Dweck, C. S.. 1998. “Children's Thinking about Traits: Implications for Judgments of the Self and Others.” Child Development 69: 392–403.Google Scholar
Heyman, G. D. and Gelman, S. A.. 2000. “Preschool Children's Use of Trait Labels to Make Inductive Inferences.” Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 77: 1–19.Google Scholar
Hirsh-Pasek, K. and Golinkoff, R. M.. 1996. The Origins of Grammar: Evidence from Early Language Comprehension. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hume, D. 1748/1977. “On Miracles” in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Jaswal, V. K. 2004. “Don't Believe Everything You Hear: Preschoolers' Sensitivity to Speaker Intent in Category Induction.” Child Development 75: 1871–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jaswal, V. K. and Malone, L. S.. 2007. “Turning Believers into Skeptics: 3-year-olds' Sensitivity to Cues to Speaker Credibility.” Journal of Cognition and Development 8: 263–83.Google Scholar
Jaswal, V. K. and Markman, E. M.. 2007. “Looks Aren't Everything: 24-month-olds' Willingness to Accept Unexpected Labels.” Journal of Cognition and Development 8: 93–111.Google Scholar
Jaswal, V. K. and Neely, L. A.. 2006. “Adults Don't Always Know Best: Preschoolers Use Past Reliability over Age When Learning New Words.” Psychological Science 17: 757–8.Google Scholar
Kalish, C. W. and Sabbagh, M. A.. (eds.) 2007. Conventionality in Cognitive Development: How Children Acquire Shared Representations in Language, Thought and Action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Koenig, M. A., Clément, F., and Harris, P. L.. 2004. “Trust in Testimony: Children's Use of True and False Statements.” Psychological Science 15: 694–8.Google Scholar
Koenig, M. A. and Echols, C. H.. 2003. “Infants' Understanding of False Labeling Events: The Referential Roles of Words and the Speakers Who Use Them.” Cognition 87: 179–203.Google Scholar
Koenig, M. A. and Harris, P. L.. 2005. “Preschoolers Mistrust Ignorant and Inaccurate Speakers.” Child Development 76: 1261–77.Google Scholar
Koenig, M. A. and Woodward, A. L.. 2007. “The Beginnings of Mistrust: 24-month-olds' Sensitivity to the Prior Accuracy of the Source.” (Manuscript under review).Google Scholar
Lampinen, J. M. and Smith, V. L.. 1995. “The Incredible (and Sometimes Incredulous) Child Witness: Child Eyewitnesses' Sensitivity to Source Credibility Cues.” Journal of Applied Psychology 80: 621–7.Google Scholar
Lutz, D. and Keil, F. C.. 2002. “Early Understanding of the Division of Cognitive Labor.” Child Development 73: 1073–84.Google Scholar
Markman, E. M. 1989. Categorization and Naming in Children. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Markman, E. M. and Hutchinson, J.. 1984. “Children's Sensitivity to Constraints on Word Meaning: Taxonomic versus Thematic Relations.” Cognitive Psychology 16: 1–27.Google Scholar
Mervis, C. B., Pani, J. R., and Pani, A. M.. 2003. “Transaction of Child Cognitivelinguistic Abilities and Adult Input in the Acquisition of Lexical Categories At the Basic and Subordinate Levels.” In Rakison, D. H. and Oakes, L. M. (eds.), Early Category and Concept Development: Making Sense of the Blooming, Buzzing Confusion, pp. 242–74. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, S. A. 2000. “Children's Understanding of Preexisting Differences in Knowledge and Belief.” Developmental Review 20: 227–82.Google Scholar
Moore, C., Bryant, D., and Furrow, D.. 1989. “Mental Terms and the Development of Certainty.” Child Development 60: 167–71.Google Scholar
Moore, C. and Davidge, J.. 1989. “The Development of Mental Terms: Pragmatics or Semantics?” Journal of Child Language 16: 633–41.Google Scholar
Neisser, U. 1987. Concepts and Conceptual Development: Ecological and Intellectual Factors in Categorization. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
O'Neill, D. K., Astington, J. W., and Flavell, J. H.. 1992. “Young Children's Understanding of the Role That Sensory Experiences Play in Knowledge Acquisition.” Child Development 63: 474–90.Google Scholar
Onishi, K. H. and Baillargeon, R.. 2005. “Do 15-month-old Infants Understand False Belief?” Science 308 (5719): 255–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pasquini, E. S., Corriveau, K. H., Koenig, M. A., and Harris, P. L.. 2007. “Preschoolers Monitor the Relative Accuracy of Informants.” Developmental Psychology (In press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pea, R. D. 1982. “Origins of Verbal Logic: Spontaneous Denials by Two-and Three-year Olds.” Journal of Child Language 9: 597–626.Google Scholar
Reid, T. 1997. An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. Brookes, Derek R. (ed.). University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Rholes, W. S. and Ruble, D. N.. 1984. “Children's Understanding of Dispositional Characteristics of Others.” Child Development 55: 550–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, E. J., Mitchell, P., and Nye, R.. 1995. “Young Children's Treating of Utterances as Unreliable Sources of Knowledge.” Journal of Child Language 22: 663–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Robinson, E. J. and Whitcombe, E. C.. 2003. “Children's Suggestibility in Relation to Their Understanding about Sources of Knowledge.” Child Development 74: 48–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sabbagh, M. A. and Baldwin, D. A.. 2001. “Learning Words from Knowledgeable versus Ignorant Speakers: Link between Preschoolers' Theory of Mind and Semantic Development.” Child Development 72(4): 1054–70.Google Scholar
Sabbagh, M. A. 2007. “Judgments about Knowledge Enable Young Children to Parse Signal from Noise in Social-information Gathering.” In Fitneva, S., Birch, S. (chairs), Children's Sensitivity to Other's Knowledge. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Boston, MA.Google Scholar
Sabbagh, M. A., Wdowiak, S. D., and Ottaway, J.M.. 2003. “Do Word Learners Ignore Ignorant Speakers?” Journal of Child Language 30: 905–24.Google Scholar
Schafer, G. and Plunkett, K.. 1998. “Rapid Word Learning by Fifteen-month-olds under Tightly Controlled Conditions.” Child Development 69: 309–20.Google ScholarPubMed
Sloutsky, V. M. and Fisher, A. V.. 2004. “Induction and Categorization in Children: A Similarity-based Model.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 133: 166–88.Google Scholar
Taylor, M., Cartwright, B. S., and Bowden, T.. 1991. “Perspective Taking and Theory of Mind: Do Children Predict Interpretive Diversity as a Function of Differences in Observers' Knowledge?” Child Development 62: 1334–51.Google Scholar
Taylor, M., Esbensen, B. M., and Bennett, R. T.. 1994. “Children's Understanding of Knowledge Acquisition: the Tendency for Children to Report That They Have Always Known What They Have Just Learned.” Child Development 65: 1581–604.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M. and Barton, M.. 1994. “Learning Words in Nonostensive Contexts.” Developmental Psychology 30: 639–50.Google Scholar
Waxman, S. R. and Markow, D. B.. 1995. “Words as Invitations to Form Categories: Evidence from 12- to 13-month-old Infants.” Cognitive Psychology 29: 257–302.Google Scholar
Welch-Ross, M. 1999. “Interviewer Knowledge and Preschoolers' Reasoning about Knowledge States Moderates Suggestibility.” Cognitive Development 14: 423–42.Google Scholar
Welder, A. N. and Graham, S. A.. 2001. “The Influence of Shape Similarity and Shared Labels on Infants' Inductive Inferences about Nonobvious Object Properties.” Child Development 72: 1653–73.Google Scholar
Wellman, H., Cross, D., and Watson, J.. 2001. “Meta-analysis of Theory of Mind Development: The Truth about False Belief.” Child Development 72: 655–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wimmer, H., Hogrefe, G., and Sodian, B.. 1988. “A Second Stage in Children's Conception of Mental Life: Understanding Informational Accesses as Origins of Knowledge and Belief.” In Astington, J. W., Harris, P. L. and Olson, D. R. (eds.), Developing Theories of Mind, pp. 93–108. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Woodward, A. L., Markman, E. M., and Fitzsimmons, C. M.. 1994. “Rapid Word Learning in 13- and 18-month-olds.” Developmental Psychology 30(4): 553–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yuill, N. 1992. “Children's Conception of Personality Traits.” Human Development 35: 265–79.Google Scholar