Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
Br J Dev Psychol. 2024 Nov;42(4):583-595. doi: 10.1111/bjdp.12518. Epub 2024 Aug 17.
The information-seeking behaviour of adults focuses on optimizing the gathering and utilizing information to minimize search costs. In contrast, children tend to engage in information search during decision-making with less consideration for costs. This difference in behaviour is believed to be linked to the development of executive functions. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between executive function and cost-related information-gathering behaviour. We assessed 56 children aged 4-6 years, involving three tasks: an information-gathering task, an inhibitory control and a working memory task. In the information-gathering task, children participated in both non-cost and cost conditions, where they were given the opportunity to freely gather information or incur a cost to acquire information. The findings revealed that children with higher inhibitory control tended to gather less information when a cost was involved. This highlights the important role of inhibitory control in shaping information-seeking behaviour in early childhood.
成年人的信息搜索行为侧重于优化信息的收集和利用，以最小化搜索成本。相比之下，儿童在决策过程中进行信息搜索时，较少考虑成本。这种行为上的差异被认为与执行功能的发展有关。因此，本研究旨在探讨执行功能与成本相关的信息收集行为之间的关系。我们评估了 56 名 4-6 岁的儿童，涉及三个任务：信息收集任务、抑制控制任务和工作记忆任务。在信息收集任务中，儿童在非成本和成本条件下都参与其中，他们有机会自由地收集信息或花费成本来获取信息。研究结果表明，抑制控制能力较高的儿童在涉及成本时往往会收集较少的信息。这突出了抑制控制在塑造儿童早期信息搜索行为方面的重要作用。
