Baer Carolyn, Malik Puja, Odic Darko
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 Canada.
Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, 2121 Berkeley Way West, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA.
Metacogn Learn. 2021;16(2):485-516. doi: 10.1007/s11409-021-09263-x. Epub 2021 Mar 27.
The world can be a confusing place, which leads to a significant challenge: how do we figure out what is true? To accomplish this, children possess two relevant skills: reasoning about the likelihood of their own accuracy (metacognitive confidence) and reasoning about the likelihood of others' accuracy (mindreading). Guided by Signal Detection Theory and Simulation Theory, we examine whether these two self- and other-oriented skills are one in the same, relying on a single cognitive process. Specifically, Signal Detection Theory proposes that confidence in a decision is purely derived from the imprecision of that decision, predicting a tight correlation between decision accuracy and confidence. Simulation Theory further proposes that children attribute their own cognitive experience to others when reasoning socially. Together, these theories predict that children's self and other reasoning should be highly correlated and dependent on decision accuracy. In four studies ( = 374), children aged 4-7 completed a confidence reasoning task and selective social learning task each designed to eliminate confounding language and response biases, enabling us to isolate the unique correlation between self and other reasoning. However, in three of the four studies, we did not find that individual differences on the two tasks correlated, nor that decision accuracy explained performance. These findings suggest self and other reasoning are either independent in childhood, or the result of a single process that operates differently for self and others.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11409-021-09263-x.
世界可能是一个令人困惑的地方，这带来了一个重大挑战：我们如何弄清楚什么是真的？为了做到这一点，儿童具备两项相关技能：推断自己准确性的可能性（元认知信心）和推断他人准确性的可能性（心理理论）。在信号检测理论和模拟理论的指导下，我们研究这两种以自我和他人为导向的技能是否是同一回事，即是否依赖于单一的认知过程。具体而言，信号检测理论提出，对一个决策的信心纯粹源于该决策的不精确性，预测决策准确性和信心之间存在紧密关联。模拟理论进一步提出，儿童在进行社会推理时会将自己的认知体验归因于他人。综合起来，这些理论预测儿童的自我推理和对他人的推理应该高度相关，并依赖于决策准确性。在四项研究（N = 374）中，4至7岁的儿童分别完成了一项信心推理任务和一项选择性社会学习任务，每项任务都旨在消除混淆的语言和反应偏差，使我们能够分离出自我推理和对他人推理之间的独特关联。然而，在四项研究中的三项里，我们没有发现两项任务上的个体差异存在相关性，也没有发现决策准确性能够解释表现。这些发现表明，自我推理和对他人的推理在童年时期要么是独立的，要么是一个对自我和他人有不同运作方式的单一过程的结果。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s11409-021-09263-x获取的补充材料。
