Driven by Information: Children's Exploration Shapes Their Distributed Attention in Category Learning
Abstract
Categories simplify the vast number of entities we encounter into equivalence classes, serving as a fundamental block of our cognition. This simplification of information supports our ability to reason about and interact with members of each category. In adulthood, selective attention helps us form categories efficiently by focusing on relevant attributes while filtering out irrelevant information. However, young children tend to encode more attributes than necessary, and this developmental difference is partly due to a prolonged development of selective attention. Additionally, the present study proposes that some children have an innate preference for information regardless of its value. In two category-learning experiments, children sampled more information than adults when filtering demands were low. Such exploratory behavior was not due to the motor actions associated with information sampling. The results suggest that children's tendency to explore plays a significant role in shaping their attentional processes in category learning. This work sheds light on the interplay of the developmental courses of exploration and selective attention and highlights the importance of considering children's preference for information in category learning research.