This study examines the development of children’s ability to modulate their trust in verbal testimony as a function of nonverbal behavior. Participants included 83 children (26 four-year-olds, 29 five-year-olds, and 28 six-year-olds) that were tasked with locating a toy hidden in one of two boxes. Before deciding the location, participants watched a video of an adult providing verbal and nonverbal cues about the location of the toy. We hypothesized that older children would display epistemic vigilance, trusting nonverbal information over verbal information when the two conflict. Consistent with our expectations, when sources were consistent, all children trusted the verbal testimony. By contrast, and as predicted, when they were inconsistent, only 6-year-olds distrusted verbal testimony and favored nonverbal cues; 4- and 5-year-olds continued to trust verbal testimony. Thus, 6-year-old children demonstrate an ability to modulate their trust in verbal testimony as a function of nonverbal information. Younger children's inability to do this is not due to their being unaware of non-verbal behavior; indeed, when nonverbal information was offered exclusively, children of all ages used it to find the object.

这项研究考察了儿童根据非语言行为调节对口头证词的信任的能力的发展。参与者包括 83 名儿童（26 名四岁儿童、29 名五岁儿童和 28 名六岁儿童），他们的任务是找到隐藏在两个盒子之一中的玩具。在决定位置之前，参与者观看了一段成人提供有关玩具位置的言语和非言语线索的视频。我们假设，当两者发生冲突时，年龄较大的孩子会表现出认知警惕，更相信非语言信息而不是语言信息。与我们的预期一致，当消息来源一致时，所有孩子都会相信口头证词。相比之下，正如预测的那样，当证据不一致时，只有 6 岁的孩子不信任口头证词，而倾向于非语言暗示；4 岁和 5 岁的孩子继续相信口头证词。因此，6 岁的儿童表现出根据非语言信息调节他们对口头证词的信任的能力。年幼的孩子无法做到这一点并不是因为他们没有意识到非语言行为；而是因为他们无法做到这一点。事实上，当只提供非语言信息时，所有年龄段的孩子都会用它来寻找物体。