Prospective Information-Seeking in Human Children (Homo sapiens): When to Seek and What to Seek

摘要

Human adults often envisage future events and prepare items or information in advance. Studies have shown that young children can also prepare items for upcoming events, but little is known about their ability to prepare information for such events. Here, we used nonverbal measures, which are widely used in comparative cognitive research, to ask whether children seek information for their future knowledge states or events. In Experiment 1, 4- and 5-year-olds had to find a sticker located under an opaque or transparent cup. The children could observe by peeking while an experimenter placed the sticker for the trial. We found that 5-year-olds peeked for longer in the opaque than the transparent condition but 4-year-olds did not. In Experiment 2, 5- and 6-year-olds had to find stickers in 2 rooms; in 1 room, an actor hid a sticker under 1 of 5 opaque cups, whereas in the other room, another actor placed a sticker under 1 of 5 transparent cups. Children could observe what the actors were doing via a monitor and then choose a room in which to search. Children of both age-groups watched events in the opaque-cup room longer than the transparent-cup room in the first trial. These results suggest that at least 5-year-olds can collect appropriate information for a future task. Our procedure should be easily adaptable for a range of nonhuman species. Studies using this procedure might reveal the phylogenetic distribution of this metacognitive ability.