Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Abstract: Recent research has suggested informant trust is an important factor in preschoolers’ observational learn-ing. This poster will present data from an ongoing study examining if 3.5- to 6.5-year-old children (current n=24) relateperceptions of effort and trust. Children watched two informants solving problems using different solutions, exerting eitherhigh or low effort. Children’s eye gaze, trust of each informant, and learning from informants were measured. There were nosignificant differences in trust of the two informants, but children were significantly more likely to learn the solution demon-strated by the high effort informant, t(23) = 2.161, p = 0.041. High effort informant trust was also significantly related totime spent looking at the high effort informant, r = 0.675, p < 0.01. These findings indicate children are more likely to watchinformants who exert high effort and are more likely to use those solutions when faced with a novel problem.