Making sense of conflicting information: A touchscreen paradigm to measure young children's selective trust

Abstract

Much recent research has shown that children from age 4 onwards reveal a robust preference for reliable over unreliable informants when choosing whom to trust and learn from. Findings concerning selective model choice in children younger than 4 years have mostly been mixed. The present study developed a new touchscreen-based paradigm with reduced task demands in order to test 2- and 3-year-old children (N = 48). Results showed that 3-year-olds selectively endorsed information from a previously reliable rather than a previously unreliable informant when searching for objects whereas 2-year-olds just followed the first hint even if provided by an unreliable informant. Whether the lack of selective model choice in 2-year-olds reflects competence or performance deficits remains to be clarified. But the present results do suggest that 3-years-olds have the basic competence to selectively choose reliable over unreliable informants that may have been masked in some previous studies by task demands. Highlights: The paper develops a novel touchscreen-based search paradigm to test young children's selective trust with reduced task demands. Three-year-olds chose selectively between conflicting hints, whereas 2-year-olds followed the first hint even if provided by an unreliable informant.