Individuals' ability to recognize when they know something, when they do not, and when they are unsure is critical for everyday functioning. To operate effectively in day to day activities, individuals must realize when they need to seek out additional information in order to avoid acting on faulty or insufficient information. An important question is how young children develop the ability to assess their own knowledge and how they learn to recognize and act on their own uncertainty. This project investigates the emergence of this ability in 2- to 3-year-old children.
Previous research indicates that children as young as three years of age recognize when they are likely to be wrong in answering a question. They avoid answering questions to which they do not know the answer, express low confidence in their responses, and request further information. Even toddlers exhibit behaviors that suggest they are tracking their own knowledge states, hesitating when their knowledge is limited and looking confident when they have relevant information. However, it is not clear if these indicators reliably reflect the accuracy of toddlers' knowledge, and whether they contribute to later emerging abilities to introspect on how well they know. In this project, Dr. Simona Ghetti will address this question, investigating the developmental emergence of these abilities. The study investigates the hypothesis that toddlers' behaviors (e.g., hesitation) and their rudimentary awareness of their states of ignorance (e.g., captured by such statements as 'I don't know') are developmental precursors of the ability to overtly introspect on uncertainty. Using a longitudinal design, the investigator will explore how these precursor behaviors at age 2 relate to measures of the ability to introspect on uncertainty at age 3.
This research will provide new insight into the emergence of introspection, which will be beneficial in educational settings. Findings from the proposed research may help identify early cues to uncertainty that could signal to educators the need to provide additional information, and might promote the development of age-specific procedures to enhance young children's ability to monitor their own knowledge states.
