In 2 studies, we attempted to capture the information-processing abilities underlying children’s reality-status judgments. Forty 5- to 6-year-olds and 53 7- to 8-year-olds heard about novel entities (animals) that varied in their fit with children’s world knowledge. After hearing about each entity, children could either guess reality status immediately or listen to testimony first. Informants varied in their expertise and in their testimony, which either supported or refuted the entities’ existence. Results revealed that children were able to evaluate the fit between the new information and their existing knowledge; this information then governed their decision regarding whether to seek testimony. Testimony had the strongest effect when new information did not conflict with, but was also not representative of, children’s knowledge.

中文翻译：

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儿童现实状态判断中知识与证言的相互作用


在两项研究中，我们试图捕捉儿童现实状态判断背后的信息处理能力。 40 名 5 至 6 岁的孩子和 53 名 7 至 8 岁的孩子听说了与儿童的世界知识不同的新奇实体（动物）。在听到每个实体后，孩子们可以立即猜测现实状态或先听证词。举报人的专业知识和证词各不相同，要么支持，要么反驳这些实体的存在。结果显示，孩子们能够评估新信息与他们现有知识之间的契合度；然后，这些信息决定了他们是否寻求证词的决定。当新信息与儿童的知识不冲突但也不代表儿童的知识时，证词的效果最强。