Curses in Children′s Knowledge-State Reasoning: The Curse of Knowledge and Ignorance

Abstract

Abstract: The present study adopted a paradigm of“looking leading to knowing”to investigate the characteristics of children′s reasoning about others′ mental-state and the possible bias. The study explored 90 3- to 5- years old children′s performance in the task of knowledge-state attribution. Results showed that: 1)All 3 groups understood that looking led to knowing. 2)5 years old children could correctly reason others′ knowledge-state without any bias. 3)However, 3 and 4 years old children′s reasoning about others′ knowledge-state was influenced by their own knowledge and presented the tendency of egocentric. That is, not only does it exist the curse of knowledge, overestimating others′ knowledge because of their own knowledge, but also the curse of ignorance, overestimating others′ ignorance because of their own ignorance. What′s more, 4 years old children′s curse of knowledge exceeded curse of ignorance, which may provide the evidence that the time of children overcoming curse of ignorance was earlier than that of knowledge.

Key words: curse of knowledge, curse of ignorance, theory of mind, paradigm of looking leading to knowing, child

摘要： 采用“看见-知道”任务考察了儿童对他人知识状态推断的特点和可能存在的偏差效应。被试为90名3-5岁儿童。结果表明，3-5岁儿童已经理解他人看见即知道的关系；5岁儿童已经能准确地推断他人的知识状态，不存在偏差；但3、4岁儿童对他人知识状态的推断受到自身知识的影响且表现出自我中心的倾向：既存在知识偏差即因为自己知道而高估他人的知识，也存在无知偏差即因为自己的无知而低估他人的知识。4岁儿童的知识偏差程度与3岁儿童无异，但无知偏差低于3岁儿童，且4岁儿童的知识偏差程度大于其无知偏差，儿童克服无知偏差的时间可能早于克服知识偏差的时间。

关键词: 知识偏差, 无知偏差, 心理理论, 看见-知道任务, 儿童。

CLC Number:

B844.1

Zhang Jingjing, Yang Ying, Hu Qingfen. Curses in Children′s Knowledge-State Reasoning: The Curse of Knowledge and Ignorance[J]. Studies of Psychology and Behavior, 2016, 14(5): 618-625.

张晶晶,杨颖,胡清芬. 儿童推断他人知识状态的知识偏差和无知偏差[J]. 心理与行为研究, 2016, 14(5): 618-625.

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