Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

How do young children decide to trust testimony thatcontradicts their initial beliefs? The current study examinedwhether children rely on cues to informant credibility (i.e.,history of accuracy) to determine if they would endorse anunexpected label from an informant. Three- and 4-year-olds(N = 60) saw a picture of a hybrid artifact that consisted offeatures of two typical familiar artifacts. Children made initialjudgments about the name of the hybrid object andsubsequently received a different name offered by aninformant who had earlier either accurately or inaccuratelynamed familiar objects. Children were more willing to revisetheir own judgment and accept the unexpected label if it wasfrom a previously accurate informant than if it was fromsomeone who had made obvious naming errors. This suggeststhat preschool-aged children selectively revise their ownknowledge; they are more trusting toward sources provenaccurate than inaccurate.