Controlling the message: preschoolers' use of information to teach and deceive others

Abstract

Effective communication entails the strategic presentation of information; good communicators present representative information to their listeners-information that is both consistent with the concept being communicated and also unlikely to support another concept a listener might consider. The present study examined whether preschool-age children effectively select information to manipulate others' semantic knowledge, by testing how children choose information to teach or deceive their listeners. Results indicate that preschoolers indeed effectively select information to meet some specific communicative goals. When asked to teach others, children selected information that effectively spanned the concept of interest and avoided overly restrictive or overly general information; when asked to deceive others, they selected information consistent with the intended deceptive messages under some circumstances. Thus, preschool children possess remarkable abilities to select the best information to manipulate what others believe.

Keywords: cognitive development; deception; evidence selection; pedagogy; teaching.

FIGURE 1

(A) Set of four blocks used to demonstrate that all blocks make the toy go. (B) The novel toy pictured in the off position and the on position. (C) Participants were asked to select two blocks, from this set of four possible blocks, to show Daisy so that she can infer the rule specified by the child’s condition.

FIGURE 2

Number of children choosing blocks in the Teaching and Deception conditions. Two possible block pairings convey the “All Rule”; one pair conveys the “Red Rule”; three remaining pairs convey other rules. (Probability of randomly selecting blocks consistent with “All Rule” = 2/6, “Red Rule” = 1/6, “Other Rules” = 3/6).