Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario L5L 1C6, Canada.
Department of Psychology, Sabancı University, 34956 Tuzla/Istanbul, Turkey.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2025 Jan;249:106068. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106068. Epub 2024 Sep 17.
Individuals revise their beliefs based on the evidential strength of others' claims. Unlike English, in languages such as Turkish evidential marking is obligatory; speakers must express whether their claims are based on direct observation or not. We investigated whether Turkish- and English-speaking 3- and 5-year-olds (N = 146; 72 girls; based in Turkey and Canada) differed in their belief revision after hearing claims based on direct observation, indirect observation, or inference. We found the same pattern in both linguistic groups; the 3-year-olds revised their beliefs more often when they heard claims based on direct observation and inference than on indirect observation, whereas the 5-year-olds showed no difference across different claims. By age 3, Turkish- and English-speaking children are sensitive to the strength of claims when revising their beliefs.
个体根据他人主张的证据强度来修正自己的信念。与英语不同，在土耳其语等语言中，证据标记是强制性的；说话者必须表达他们的主张是基于直接观察还是非直接观察。我们调查了土耳其语和英语为母语的 3 岁和 5 岁儿童（N=146；72 名女孩；分别来自土耳其和加拿大）在听到基于直接观察、间接观察或推理的主张后，其信念修正是否存在差异。我们在两个语言群体中都发现了相同的模式；3 岁儿童在听到基于直接观察和推理的主张时比听到基于间接观察的主张更频繁地修正自己的信念，而 5 岁儿童在不同主张之间没有差异。到 3 岁时，土耳其语和英语为母语的儿童在修正自己的信念时对主张的强度很敏感。
