Cognitive Development
and
Trust in Testimony
Resolving conflicts between perception and testimony
Jaswal and Markman
“Looks Aren’t Everything: 24-Month-Olds’ Willingness to Accept
Unexpected Labels”
o
2 studies; exemplars and hybrids; provided 2 possible actions
o
Children with no label identified by perception
o
Children with label identified mostly by testimony
Labeling influences category formation
Labeling is flexible to change
Category formation beyond appearance
Understanding appearances can be misleading
Lyons, Young and Keil
“The Hidden Structure of over-imitation”
Over-imitation – persistently reproducing adult’s unnecessary actions
(Lyons et al)
Puzzle objects; children (3-5 year-olds); necessary and irrelevant actions
– “taught to the test”
1A – unobserved, 1B – practical real world task
2A – instructed to ignore silly steps, 2B – connected vs. disconnected
object
Automatic causal encoding
Harris
Chapter 3: Resolving conflicts between perception and testimony
3 domains
Classification of objects
Predictions about the physical world
Imitation of tool use
Chimney Apparatus – “gravity bias”; imagination
Mix of autonomy and deference
Deference – cognitive basis; demonstrative act
Intuition vs. Trust
Autonomy vs. Deference
Over-imitation
Beneficial vs. Ingrained
Importance of Object/Topic
Trauma
Imagination