Development of Uncertainty Monitoring During the Preschool Years

University Of California-Davis, Davis CA

Investigators

Abstract

When performing a cognitive task or answering a question, can young children tell when they might be wrong? Can they use their subjective assessment of uncertainty to guide decisions about future behaviors? How do children gain the ability to introspect on the experience of uncertainty? Answers to these questions will provide critical insight into basic mechanisms of cognitive development during the preschool years. To date, a large body of research has focused on young children's conceptual understanding of knowledge (e.g., children's understanding that knowing differs from guessing); however, the study of uncertainty monitoring (i.e., the ability to perform on-line assessments of one's own subjective experience of un/certainty in the accuracy of a response) has been largely neglected. Yet the ability to monitor uncertainty has significant implications. Children may learn more effectively if they recognize when they are uncertain about their knowledge and, as a result, they act to overcome this state of uncertainty (e.g., by asking for clarification, requesting more information, studying materials more carefully). The proposed research will examine the emergence and early development of uncertainty monitoring with three experiments. Experiment 1 will investigate whether preschoolers can introspect on their uncertainty. To do so, 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds will be trained to provide confidence judgments on a number of cognitive tasks. It is expected that even 3-year-olds will show some uncertainty monitoring ability, as indicated by higher confidence ratings for accurate compared to inaccurate responses in the task, but improvements in this ability will be observed throughout the preschool years. Experiment 2 will examine 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds' ability to use their uncertainty to guide their decisions. Experiment 2a will examine whether children are more likely to ask for clarification when they are uncertain, compared to when they are certain, whereas Experiment 2b will examine whether children are more likely to refrain from responding when they are uncertain compared to when they are certain. It is expected that even 3-year-olds will show evidence of reliance on uncertainty in both contexts, but that, with age, children become increasingly attuned and able to act on their uncertainty states. The ability to evaluate one's sense of certainty about the likely accuracy of one's knowledge and the ability to act strategically in the face of this evaluation are essential to learning. Although there is a general consensus that children learn rapidly from an early age, a dominant view is that young children cannot advance their learning by reflecting on their own uncertainty states. The proposed research will provide new insight into early learning and establish whether, even at young ages, children gain from reflecting on their states of uncertainty. In addition to providing critical insight into mechanisms of learning and development, the results of the current research will have important implications for educational settings and other contexts where children's awareness of the degree to which they know or do not know something is critical (e.g., legal settings). Findings from the proposed research may promote the development of age-specific procedures that enhance young children's ability to report on their current states of knowledge.