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Children's use of information is an issue in ethics and child development.

Source monitoring

Information is learned from many different sources. Consider the example of a person concerned because their child has been diagnosed with hyperactivity; the parent searches the internet for information, reads books, participates in an online chat room of other parents in the same situation, and listens to various medical professionals. Some of these sources will be credible (contain reliable information), and others will not. To be well- and accurately-informed, the parent must mentally filter out information that has come from unreliable sources.

Children learn about the world in much the same way. They are told things by numerous people (e.g., teacher, parent, older sibling, friend), they see things on the television or internet, and may also be able to read information in books. Can children be effective consumers of information? When are they able to do this? How do they deal with ambiguous resources? This page will detail answers to those questions (and others) drawing on peer-reviewed scientific literature.

The development of source monitoring

Young children have more difficulty with understanding the sources of their information as compared to adults. While memory itself improves throughout childhood and adolescence, most development in the area of source monitoring tends to occur between the ages of 3 and 8 years. At 3 years, even children who are able to immediately recognize the source of the information they obtain, they have difficulty recalling this information after even a short delay. While development of source monitoring is gradual, children display competency in certain aspects of source monitoring before others. These differing competencies provide evidence for a variety of factors that are necessary for development. While there is no generally accepted unified theory for the development of source monitoring, there are five major theories as to how source monitoring develops in children: Source Monitoring Theory, Fuzzy-trace Theory, Schema Theory, Person-based Perspective, and the Mental-state Reasoning Model.

Source Monitoring Theory

In source monitoring theory the source of the information in question is attributed through a decision-making process, where the source is inferred based on various characteristics inherent in the memory itself. This means that the source of any particular information is not encoded for, but rather produced, or reproduced, whenever the information itself is recalled. While this decision-making process is carried out whenever the information is recalled, it is assumed to be automatic and unconscious. Conscious construction of the source can be done either simultaneously with, or subsequently to, the automatic process. Under this theory, the development of source monitoring revolves around the development of memory skills and memory strategy use.

Fuzzy-trace Theory

Fuzzy-trace theory hypothesizes that the errors children show in source monitoring are based on problems with the storage and retrieval of the memories themselves. Memories are stored in two different formats simultaneously: first the general “gist” of the nature of the piece of information retained, and second the verbatim representation of the information in exact detail. In this theory, as opposed to source monitoring theory, the source of the information is encoded in memory as a part of the verbatim details. For fuzzy-trace theory developmental improvements in memory performance are paramount, as young children demonstrate an increase rate in the decay or loss of verbatim information.

Schema Theory

Schema theory, as a derivative of script theory, states that general representations are created through repeated exposure to similar events. Details that vary from instance to instance are stored in “slots,” while the possible variations are stored as lists. This repeated exposure framework allows for the storage of large amounts of information about specific events, but at the cost of high cognitive processing demands, which children may not be able to accommodate. Thus if source is encoded as a slot, errors in source monitoring can be seen as the result of incorrect retrieval for a specific detail. According to Schema Theory, as younger children have more limited cognitive resources, they require more repetition of similar events to generate a schema. With the high cognitive demand of the schema, details that vary from instance to instance can be lost, absorbed into the more generalized event representation. Thus development of source monitoring capabilities is determined by increased cognitive processing ability and capacity.

Person-based Perspective

Person-based Perspective is similar to script theory, in that it places emphasis on prospective processes (prospective memory wikilink). Prospective processes relate actions to one another through operations such as sequencing events or actions, and planning. These processes are affected by the perspective taken (self vs. other) or the goals and meaning thereof to the individual. The meaning attached to the goal of an action can interfere with source monitoring by removing attention from the source details. The Person-based Perspective is more social-cognitive in nature than other theories of source-monitoring, and thus development is more reliant on socialization, and theory of mind development.

Mental-state Reasoning Model

The mental-state reasoning model highlights possible mechanisms behind young children’s suggestibility. In order to promote resistance to suggestibility, an increased emphasis is placed on source-monitoring, and the understanding of knowledge states. This knowledge develops between the ages of 3 and 6 years, and begins with the understanding that knowledge is obtained through access to information. Furthermore, information is obtained through specific experiences, which can differ based on perspective. Understanding that different perspectives can produce differing information about the same event is the basis for judgments of source quality. Similar to the Person-based Perspective, development in the mental-state reasoning model is based on better understanding of knowledge states, and thus metacognition and theory of mind.

The origins of knowledge

Being aware of how we have acquired information is particularly difficult for young children (specifically 3 - 5 year olds). After feeling a soft ball, 3 and 4 years can correctly identify yes or no to if they know the ball is soft or hard but cannot always indicate how they know – was it because they felt the ball, saw the ball or was told it was soft? The ability to recognize the origin of their knowledge requires the understanding of how knowledge is acquired

Knowledge and Justification

Researchers have investigated children’s acquisition of knowledge through knowledge questions: “Do you know what is in the box? Followed by justification questions: “How do [why don’t] you know what is in the box? Correct answers indicate that children can reflect on knowledge that they have gained from a particular source and should be able to refer to the source that provided them the information.

Interestingly, 3 and 4 year olds are better at answering these questions when the questions refer to themselves in comparison to referring to another person. When these children are shown a hidden object they can correctly report their perceptual access, responding correctly to “Did you look into the box?” and their knowledge of what is in the box (knowledge access), responding correctly to “Do you know [not know] what is in the box?” Despite their ability to answer correctly when referring to the self, 3 and 4 year olds have difficulty responding to the “others” knowledge, specifically these children deny the “other” has the knowledge. For example a 3-4 year old can correctly identify that the other person has in fact looked in a box but when ask “Does [other] know what is in the box?” the child will deny that the other person knows what is in the box responding “no” to this question. Therefore, children are aware that perceptual access is needed but are unable to acknowledge the knowledge gained from the perceptual access

Gaining Knowledge Through Looking, Touching and Asking

Gaining knowledge is knowing how to acquire new information. Identifying the colour of a car outside the window, could involve asking someone for the information or looking out the window. In most cases adults would acquire this knowledge from simply looking out the window. However, not all information can be gained in this manner. If you were asked how old is the driver of the car, simply looking would not provide accurate information, you would have to ask. These two situations are dependent on whether the information being sought out is visible or invisible (respectively). Knowledge development depends on children’s ability to efficiently pursue their informational goal, children do not always make the most effective or efficient decision when acquiring new information. Six-year olds are able to distinguish when gaining knowledge requires looking (the information is visible) or when gaining knowledge requires asking (the information is invisible). However, 4 year olds do not perform as consistently. Even with an expert present, 4 year olds will over attribute the knowledge they can gain through looking however, when the information to be gained is regarding a group of friends and the expert is a friend of the group 4 year olds tend to over attribute knowledge acquisition through asking.

Furthermore, when given access to pairs of objects, which could either be identified by seeing (identical object different in colour) or by touch/feeling (identical objects: 1 soft, 1 hard), children perform relatively well, generally recognizing when they have adequate information and when they have inadequate information – knowing the object is blue after seeing it or knowing the object is soft after feeling it. However, when young children are not given access (of seeing or feeling), they have difficulty predicting and identifying which mode of access would allow them to identify the object. In this case, 3 & 4 year olds over-estimate the knowledge that could be gained through feeling the object. When children incorrectly attribute an action to gaining knowledge (e.g. indicating touching will help them determine if the object is red or blue) they are asked to carry out their incorrect action. These children become confused as to why their action does not assist in acquiring the desired information. This indicates that 3-4 year old may not understand the perceptual access needed to acquire the specific knowledge.

The ability to recognize how specific knowledge can be gained by perceptual access (look, feel or smell) is the understanding of Aspectuality. Aspectuality understanding is the awareness that an object is made up of many different properties (colour, weight, odour) which can be determined by a specific perceptual action (looking, feeling, smelling)

Language and Question Phrasing

Waters and Beck (2012) state “understanding the link between perceptual access and consequent information (knowledge access) is a crucial component in the development of theory of mind”. In a typical adult population, change in the phrasing of a particular question would not affect the understanding of what action needs to occur. For example asking “What colour is the bike that is outside?” or “Is the bike red?” should not change the action of looking to gain the needed information. However, there is evidence that children’s performance may be susceptible to this type of question phrasing. Walter & Beck (2012) examined the language effects on knowledge access through 3 different question types:

Identity: "Find out which one is in the tunnel",

Dimension: "Find out what colour the one in the tunnel is", and

Aspect: "Find out if the one in the tunnel is the red one or the blue one".

4 and 5 year olds are more likely to responded correctly to aspect and dimension question in comparison to identity questions. Aspect and dimension questions are more explicit, this could possibly explain why performance was higher in these categories. Furthermore, identity question require more cognitive effort having to remember how the objects were similar and how they differed.

Judging the Credibility of Sources and Understanding of Trust

Much of people’s knowledge about the world is not obtained from direct experience, but indirectly from what other people or sources tell them. With widespread use of the internet people have access to nearly unlimited sources of information. Some of that information might be conflicting, and different sources of information vary in their accuracy and credibility. People can also deliberately deceive, be misunderstood, or be mistaken. It is important that people develop the necessary skills to assess the accuracy of what they are being told.

Adults’ Credibility Judgments

When adults make credibility judgments they typically consider two factors: expertise and trustworthiness. For example, we might trust information from peer-reviewed articles more than information from blogs because we know that anyone can write a blog, but scientists who write peer-reviewed articles are highly trained; there is a difference in expertise between these sources of information. With regards to trustworthiness, adults are less likely to believe someone who they think is trying to deceive them, and they take into account the intentions of the information-provider. For example, if someone’s intention is to sell you something, you might be more skeptical of the accuracy of the information they provide because their motives cause you to question their honesty. Adults can effectively use these cues to make judgments about the credibility of different sources, but whether children can also do so is an important area for research.

Children’s Ability to Make Credibility Judgments

Even very young children show an early sensitivity to issues of source credibility. By the age of 4, children show similar patterns to adults in a preference for perception over testimony; that is, they would rather see something with their own eyes than be told about it. Children also feel more confident in their knowledge when they have directly perceived it than if they have been told by someone else, even if the speaker is well informed However, children are not always able to directly perceive information, and they learn much of what they know from others. Some people are more credible sources of information than others, so children must actively evaluate information and decide whether or not to believe it. There are many factors or cues that children, by the age of 4, take into consideration when making judgements about either the trustworthiness of a person or whether or not to trust what a person says. For instance, knowledge and experience, traits, motivations, and age, and reasoning or support.

Credibility Judgments Based on Knowledge and Experience

Young children have a reputation for credulity, or believing something without having any proof that it is true, and research with young children has shown a robust bias to trust testimony from adults, especially when children have no prior knowledge or expectations about the topic of the testimony. Children tend to interact with adults who are more knowledgeable than themselves, so if they have no reason to believe otherwise, they will trust what adults tell them. Researchers have determined that 3 year-olds’ tendencies to believe others are not based on a general bias to expect others to behave in helpful ways (i.e., general trust in others), but rather a selective bias to testimony (i.e., specific trust in what people tell them), which may be adaptive in the early years as they are learning language and their way around the world.

In particular, children have difficulty disregarding testimony from a single informant, even when that informant has been an unreliable source of information in the past. 3 year-olds will often continue to believe what a person tells them even after being repeatedly deceived by that person, but 4 year-olds are far better able to disregard this unreliable testimony . Even three year-olds are better at making source credibility judgments when they are able to choose between two sources of knowledge, rather than deciding whether or not to believe a single informant, and in this situation they are often able to choose the more reliable of two speakers

By age 4, there is clear evidence that young children take an informant’s knowledge, expertise, and reliability into account in order to avoid learning from unreliable or problematic sources. They endorse statements made by knowledgeable speakers more than ignorant speakers, before they can explicitly answer questions about who has access to knowledge . They also prefer to seek information from sources who have been knowledgeable in the past. Four-year-olds can spontaneously use others’ past performance to guide their learning.

Credibility Judgments Based on Traits and Motivation

Almost all human institutions (e.g., family, community, business, government) are built on a foundation of trust. There are many factors that influence children’s trust in people and one of the most important is honesty. There are various schools of philosophical thought that posits honesty to be morally right and lying to be morally wrong. On one end of the continuum, philosophers like Bok, Kant, and St. Augustine hold a deontological view that focuses on intrinsic duties relating to the treatment of others. In other words, telling the truth is intrinsically right and lying is intrinsically wrong. On the other end of the continuum is the utilitarian view that emphasizes the greater good, specifically with respect to the outcome of one’s act. Therefore, lying and its moral implications are context dependent. In some situations, such as when being polite to spare another person’s feelings, making a “prosocial lie” or deliberate false statement are endorsed.

Children consider motivation, as well as traits, when deciding who to seek information from and who to believe. In both Eastern and Western cultures, both adults and children adhere to the utilitarian perspective when giving moral evaluations of truths and lies in different social situations. In terms of people’s characteristics, children tend to place trust in people who are honest, smart, and kind over people who are dishonest, or not smart, or not kind. However, they also consider the person’s intent or motivation. For example, from age 7, children consider both honesty and benevolence when making trust judgments about other people, and older children are more likely to trust people who tell prosocial lies (to avoid hurting another person’s feelings or to help another person) than young children. For younger children, one’s honesty is the more important than their motivation when it comes to lying and as they age, they increasingly place weight on another person’s motivation. The relationship between telling the truth and trusting the person is stable, but when it comes to lying, children consider the motivation of the speaker when deciding whether or not to trust them.

Credibility Judgments Based on Age and Reliability

Children evaluate the credibility of a speaker by evaluating how reliable that person has been in the past, as well as can make predictions about a speaker based on their age. As well, children as young as 3 years-old prefer to trust an unfamiliar adult rather than an unfamiliar child.

Young children spontaneously keep track of the prior history of a person’s accuracy or inaccuracy (reliability) and prefer to learn from someone with a good track record. Children commonly interpret the speaker’s history of inaccuracy as a lasting trait and so the speaker is considered an unreliable informant, at least within the domain they have been wrong about. However, under certain conditions, children may excuse a person’s past inaccuracy and later trust that person for information. If a speaker has limited information (e.g., lack of perceptual access) in making a claim – for example, inaccurately identifying a toy while blindfolded – then children as young as 3 years-old appropriately excuse their past inaccuracy especially when they are later well-informed. Still, if a speaker had full access to information in making a claim, children continue to regard him/her as unreliable. Thus, children consider both the prior history of accuracy and the level of perceptual access the speaker has when they are making a claim.

When considering both age and reliability, age is often the cue used to determine another’s credibility. For example, 3 and 4 year-olds found adults to be trustworthier than peers unless the peer demonstrated greater reliability (i.e., adult incorrectly mislabelled objects, whereas peer correctly labelled them). Therefore, children will trust adults more than their peers unless there is a reason to doubt the adult.

Credibility Judgments Based on Reasoning or Support

Young children appreciate that people generally think and act sensibly when reasons are present, but at the same time, young children can evaluate a person's claim by assessing the quality of the reasons they provide. Thus, children create an epistemic profile of a person based on the quality of reasons they offer when making a claim. As young as 3 years-old, children understand the difference between good and bad reasons for making a statement. For example, if someone was asked to identify what was inside a backpack, children judged the following as good reasons to trust their claim: reliable testimony (“My teacher told me there’s a book in the bag. I think that there’s a book”), looking (“Before I came here, I looked and saw a ball in the bag. I think there’s a ball in there”), and inference (“It’s a backpack. Backpack holds books. I think there’s a book in there”). On the other hand, desire (“I like crayons. I want there to be crayons in the bag. I think that there are crayons in there”), pretense (“I like to pretend. I’m going to pretend that there’s a sandwich in the bag. I think there’s a sandwich in there”), and guessing (“I don’t know. I’m going to guess that there’s a toy in the bag”) as bad reasons. Children know that these bad reasons are mental states that they and others may often hold, but also appreciate that these reasons are not reliable means for drawing specific conclusions. Moreover, 3 and 4 year-olds can also choose the more reasonable of two people and continue to seek, as well as, accept new information from the more credible person (the one who had better reasons in the past).

Children’s Development of Distrust

People are not always reliable and it is important to be able to differentiate between good sources and bad sources of information. Assessing one’s reliability is based on the knowledgeability of speaker, but their motives/intentions is also crucial. People may not always be motivated to tell the truth; instead, they lie to promote their own interest or the interest of others. As children age, they become better at distinguishing between helpful vs. deceptive people and this development occurs in preschool. Vanderbilt and colleagues recently investigated these age differences and the role theory of mind has on the development of distrust. 3 year-olds are not able to identify who is trying to help or trick another person and accept advice from both helpers and trickers. On the other hand, 4 year-olds are more sceptical and could differentiate between helpers and trickers, but had no preference in choosing whom to accept advice from. There may be a mismatch between knowledge and behaviour among 4 year-olds, in which they do not understand the implications of their knowledge and how to successfully apply it to their behaviour. 5 year-olds systematically preferred advice from helpers. Ultimately, theory of mind, or children’s understanding of mind, is related to selective trust in helpers (vs. trickers). Beginning from 5 years-old, children understand a person’s prior history of deception and use that understanding to make reliability judgments about that person.

Children's judgments about ignorant and ambiguous sources

Ambiguous information is “a piece of information (word, message, or view) with multiple interpretations.” In our daily lives we often come across ambiguous input when we don’t have all of the necessary information to make an accurate interpretation. Adults not only have the awareness to realize when ambiguity exists, but they also have strategies to deal with ambiguous input. Young children have difficulty with both, recognizing ambiguity and understanding how to handle it. Typically, it is not until the age of 6 or 7 that children have the ability to successfully deal with ambiguous input. However, it seems in certain contexts with certain tasks even younger children display some ability to deal with ambiguous information.

Knowing You Don’t Know

Being aware that an ambiguous situation has arisen is quite difficult for young children. Research shows that children accurately “know when they know”, but often overestimate when they don’t know. However, children’s behaviour does not seem to match their ability to verbally acknowledge their “lack of knowledge.” Research shows that despite incorrectly stating that they “know” something, children were still capable of changing their response upon hearing contradicting information to their initial interpretation. One possible contributing factor in children’s accurate assessment of their knowledge is language. It would be necessary for children to understand the various meanings of the word “know” as well as language used to describe certainty and uncertainty.

The Role of Language and Prior Experience

Language can play a large role in the ability to correctly decipher ambiguous input. One can “know” someone in many different ways, for example, seeing them, talking to them, having a prior history with them, etc. This therefore makes questions like “Do you know?” very complicated and difficult to deal with. More explicit definitions of “to know” seem to assist children in better assessing their own knowledge. Children as young as 4 years old were able to make far more accurate statements about their actual knowledge, when a question was phrased “Have you HEARD OF “ rather than “Do you KNOW.” By the age of 6 children are typically able to accurately assess their knowledge with very little impact on their future behaviour regardless of the language used. 4-5 year olds, on the other hand, were so susceptible that the phrase used altered their response to future questions. 4-5 year olds were less likely to overestimate their knowledge of a target person if the initial question was phrased Have you heard of rather than Do you know. Not only can responses from children be altered by the phrasing of the question, but even the suggestion of lack of prior experience with the target is enough for children to change their response. In a study in which children were asked if they really knew who a specific person was (between 2 pictures of people they had never seen before) they were much more accurate in assessing that they didn’t know when it was suggested that the target person had never been to the child’s city before. With the knowledge that children use actual prior experience in judging their current knowledge, researchers wanted to further investigate whether children over-relied on prior experience. In other words, would children over estimate their knowledge if they had only a bit of prior experience, specifically, not enough experience for the task. However, researchers found that children tend not to over-rely on prior experience and only use it when they’ve had significant experience that would actually assist them in assessing their knowledge Researchers attributed success in correctly stating lack of knowledge to an “absence of a feeling of recognition.” They explained that by getting a child to attend to this feeling (through language or prompting of prior experience) will allow them to more accurately assess their actual knowledge.

Using Your Imagination

Research has found that the certainty with which people interpret ambiguous information can change based on the context in which the interpretation is made. Beck, McColgan, Robinson and Rowley (2011) described 2 types of uncertainty; epistemic and physical. In an epistemic situation a response already exists (Ex. The dice has already been rolled) however the participant is ignorant to the response (Ex. The dice is hidden from the participant. In physical uncertainty an event has not yet happened therefore the outcome has yet to be determined (Ex. The dice has not yet been rolled). Children show a preference for guessing in epistemic uncertainty rather than physical uncertainty. Furthermore, children show more confidence in the accuracy of their response in epistemic uncertainty. Beck and colleagues (2011) proposed that this difference is due to the fact that it is much easier to imagine the outcome during epistemic uncertainty than during physical uncertainty. This view was based on the fact that children were most confident in their prediction in epistemic uncertainty when a specified toy was used versus when an unspecified toy was hidden. Basically the researchers claim that for a child to know what toy is being hidden (specified vs. unspecified) and for the toy to have already been hidden (epistemic uncertainty vs. physical uncertainty) makes it much easier for them to imagine the outcome, thereby increasing their confidence in their decision. While adults say they prefer to guess in physical uncertainty, they, much like children, actually prefer to predict in epistemic uncertainty.

Partial Information

Sometimes when confronted with ambiguous information, more than one piece of information is required to make and accurate interpretation. For example, in a study where children had to pick one of 4 pictures presented to them after hearing ambiguous information, they were capable of making tentative interpretations and then correctly changing their interpretations upon hearing contradicting, clarifying information. Subsequent studies verified that the children were indeed using both pieces of information to make their final interpretation. This strategy to use multiple pieces of information has been seen in children as young as 15 months old. Researchers suggest that, in these situations where only partial information is available, young children make the best interpretation possible with the information given, and go on to change this interpretation only when contradicting information emerges.

Delaying Interpretation

The presentation if clarifying information is not always immediately eminent. In these situations adults seem to easily be able to delay interpretation and seek clarifying information when appropriate. Even more difficult then acknowledging that an ambiguous situation has arisen is children’s understanding in what actions they need to take for clarification. When examining this strategy researchers differentiate between 2 different types of delay in interpreting ambiguous information; one that is intentional and one that is instinctual. The explicit decision to delay interpretation and seek further information is a difficult one, as it involves both being aware that the current information is not sufficient, and knowing how to acquire appropriate information necessary for clarification. Children are typically not successful in this process until the age of 7. For example, after hearing an ambiguous clue children had the option to search under the cones before responding to find a hidden toy. Only 7-8 year old children successfully used the strategy of looking under the cones when provided with ambiguous clues. However, when this explicit decision to delay was simplified children as young as 5 years old showed some ability to successfully choose to delay responding. For example, even young children successfully selected to “wait for another clue” when this was made an explicit option by placing a card (with the next clue) beside the cones with the hidden toy. These studies show that the ability to intentionally delay can be seen at various ages depending on the difficulty of the task. While the ability for intentionally delaying interpretation seems to be a more difficult one, research has shown the ability to delay interpretation instinctively seems to be easier for young children to accomplish. In one example, children were asked to stamp the correct snowman once they knew which one it was. Their knowledge of the correct snowman was based on a researcher slowly revealing the target snowman. The children’s cards contained snowmen that differed by some feature visible on the 2nd half of the snowman only and therefore the children were required to wait until the 2nd half of the snowman was revealed in order to accurately assess which snowman was the correct one. In this scenario focusing on instinct, children as young as 5 were able to accurately delay interpretation. However in a similar experiment requiring explicit awareness and an intentional decision to delay children were not as successful at this task. Therefore while it is difficult for children to explicitly demonstrate their awareness of an ambiguous situation and how to resolve it, they are implicitly able to handle situations in which delaying interpretation may be beneficial.

Referents and Meaning

One further concept that is difficult for younger children to grasp is the idea that objects can be referred to in different ways and that people can have partial knowledge of the different references. For example a bouncy ball might also be referred to as a rubber sphere. A person might know by looking that a toy is a toy truck, but they may not be aware that the toy truck is also a present. Referential opacity is the concept of whether or not referring to an object changes it’s meaning. Therefore something that is referentially transparent (substitution insensitive) means that by altering the referent term does not alter the meaning. Alternatively something that is referentially opaque (substitution sensitive) means that altering the referent term would alter the meaning. An example of this used research involved a puppet named Heinz. There was a ball in a box and children were told that Heinz knows that there was a ball in the box but does not know that the ball is a present. Children were then asked substitution insensitive questions (Ex. Does Heinz know the ball is a present? – Asking, “Does Heinz know the rubber sphere is a present?” does not alter the meaning of the question) and substitution sensitive questions (Ex. Does Heinz know there’s a present in the box? – Asking “Does Heinz know there is a rubber sphere in the box” does alter the meaning of the question). Regardless of age, substitution insensitive questions seemed to be easier than substitution sensitive questions. Furthermore, ability to correctly answer substitution sensitive questions seemed to improve with age. Researchers suggest that ability to answer these types of questions is closely related to ability to effectively evaluate ambiguous messages. Results indicate that success on substitution insensitive questions is necessary but not sufficient for success on evaluation ambiguous messages. Alternatively, success on substitution-sensitive questions is necessary and sufficient for success at evaluating ambiguous messages.

Metacognition

What is Metacognition

Metacognition in an ability that allows people to think about their own thinking process, and to use it to help themselves learn better. Metacognition includes two separate abilities; knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition, but knowledge of one’s thinking process is not enough to regulate a person’s behaviour People need to use specific strategies to help them regulate their behaviour.

Metacognition and Understanding Partial and Ambiguous Messages

Metacognition has been studied in different ways. One way to study metacognition in children is to study Children's judgments about ignorant and ambiguous sources. In addition to having the necessary language skills to understand that ambiguous messages can have two different referents (“It’s a man with a pointy hat, and he’s holding it." Where the “It” can refer to the hat or to a red striped ball, for example), children must be able to distinguish between what was actually said (Actual Message) and what the speaker meant to say (Intended Message) and to hold both of these possibilities in mind at the same time.

Moreover, children need to understand that an ambiguous message is incomplete. Therefore, children need to know what they don’t know and what they need to find out. This Knowing You Don’t Know ability is very difficult for children because children aged 5 – 7 years don’t understand that information can be partial. So children can be unsure whether they understand a (partial) message, but they still believe that they were told enough information to understand the message. Therefore, for young children to understand ambiguous messages, they first need to realize that messages can be partial or incomplete, before they can distinguish between what was said (Actual Message) and what was meant to be said (Intended Message).

In addition, children can determine which speaker is well-informed and which speaker is badly informed, and they are able to update their knowledge only when they receive information from well-informed others. Research showed that 3 and 4 year old children are able to automatically make the right decision of believing only the well-informed sources, but they cannot explicitly say how they came to that conclusion. In addition, children 3 to 5 years of age can explicitly recall what they did, and what they say another person do, but even with that knowledge they are still unable to tell how they came to their conclusions about whom to believe. This shows that metacognition in young children is low, as they do not appear to be able to reflect on their own knowledge, or in this case, the source of their knowledge.

Physical and Epistemic Uncertainty

Similarly, studying whether children understand the difference between an event that has not yet happened, in comparison to an event that they know has already happened, but the outcome of which they do not know also provides an insight into children’s metacognitive abilities. These two types of uncertainties are called physical uncertainty (an event has not yet happened) and epistemic uncertainty (children see that the event has occurred, and they are aware that the experimenter knows the outcome, but children are not aware of the outcome). Children aged 4 to 8 years old are good at realizing multiple possibilities for an event that has not yet occurred, however they do not seem to acknowledge that there are the exact same possibilities for an event that has already happened, when they don’t know it’s outcome. Therefore, under the conditions of epistemic uncertainty, children have trouble considering all possibilities, and they simply choose to guess; to pick a single possibility.

Feeling-of-Knowing (FOK)

A different method of studying metacognition in children is to examine the accuracy of feeling-of-knowing. Feeling-of-knowing occurs when people are unable to recall a memory or a fact of the top of their head, but they know that they learnt it and are able to recognize that fact in a multiple-choice test. This task is metacognitive in nature, as people need to be aware of what they have learned before and to reflect on that knowledge, in order to make FOK judgments. Research shows that adults’ feeling-of-knowing accuracy is well-above chance but not nearly perfect. It seems to be the same for children as well. Lockl and Schneider (2002) tested the accuracy of 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade children’s feeling-of-knowing judgments. They found no developmental trends over the course of these elementary years. Instead, they found that feeling-of knowing judgments were low, but still above chance for all age groups. The authors concluded that since young children’s accuracy was comparable to older children’s accuracy, there is evidence that even young children have some metacognitive awareness.

Forensic applications

As research indicates, children are highly susceptible to a "suggestibility effect", producing "false memories" (see false memory) and/or "incorrect, post-event information" (see misinformation effect) when asked to engage in memory recall. This is most prominent in forensic interviewing and child witness testimony. For example, prominent cases such as that of Kelly Michael's (see Wee Care Nursery School abuse trial), critically indicate that improper interviewing techniques can lead to serious consequences. In order to develop reliable and age appropriate instruments for interviewing children, it is imperative to first thoroughly examine their cognitive development, verbal and mental abilities.

Theoretical Models of Memory Development

Trace-Integrity Model

According to this model, younger children are more likely to experience "memory intrusions" due to weaker memory traces. Younger children are also more likely to be unable to encode information and experience a "rapid rate of forgetting" than older children. Children are therefore more susceptible to utilize misleading information through a suggestibility effect by blending or replacing memory traces from an original event, essentially overwriting.

Mental State Reasoning Model

This model incorporates theory of mind with research on memory processes to determine the influences of suggestibility in child interviews It indicates that children who have difficulty with conflicting mental representations (see mental representation), are likely to overwrite their original memories with misinformation due to "multiple contradictory representations".

Fuzzy Trace Theory

This is a model embedded in cognitive development research which assumes that memory traces are created and sustained on a "continuum" that move from "literal, factual, verbatim to fuzzy, imprecise, and gist-like" The critical assumption is that a "fuzzy/verbatim" memory trace can be inaccurately represented as "gist", or a concrete, single event that has been influenced by a variation of other memory traces. This is important, as most children tend to demonstrate a bias for producing verbatim traces over any other. Researchers indicate that this may be an underlying reason for the production of false memories due to children's differing access of "gist and verbatim" memories. (see fuzzy-trace theory)

Forensic Interviews and Techniques

Factors that can impact disclosure

It is critical for a forensic interviewer to recognize their power during an interview, especially with a child witness. An interviewer can significantly impact the course of a child's testimony, for example, by "eliciting false allegations" through leading and suggestive questions, determine the amount of detail a child may disclose, and in some cases, prevent a child from disclosing all together.

Research also indicates that other extraneous factors like the gender of the interviewer can impact the quality and details of disclosure. Studies indicate that children between the ages of 4 and 6 are more likely to disclose to an interviewer of the same gender. As well, research conducted on female and male interviewers suggests that female interviewers are more likely to ask boys suggestive questions than girls, whereas male interviewers did not demonstrate a significant distinction based on the quality of their interview techniques.

The age of a child is also an important factor during interviewing. Younger children are more likely to provide shorter, less detailed accounts of an event in comparison to older children. Some research also indicates that preschool children are more likely to disclose information in an "accidental way" through being triggered, whereas older school children are more likely to make "intentional disclosures" based on the nature of the question they are asked.

Improper Interviewing

There are varying techniques and extraneous factors that can significantly influence the way in which a child discloses an event during child witness testimony, for example, abuse. Researchers suggest that there are two major types of barriers in forensic interviews: improper interviewing and clumsy interviewing

Improper interviewing includes forensic techniques that are considered to be "risky and ineffective". Each of the following techniques can create critically negative consequences in witness testimony and potentially result in "false allegations and reduced likelihood of conviction":

1. Use of reinforcement: For example, if an interviewer utilizes rewards and punishments to coerce disclosure
2. Social influence: If an interviewer informs a child of another child's disclosure or recollection
3. Asking suggestive or leading questions: This can occur when an interviewer provides a child with information that is new
4. Removing the child from direct experience: For example, asking a child "what might have happened"

Clumsy interviewing involves interviews that fail to include best practices and recommended techniques. Interviewers who are not properly trained in forensic techniques can fail to follow structured interview guidelines and significantly impact the outcome of a child's witness testimony. Clumsy interviewing can most often occur when an interviewer lacks skill, forgets important procedures and even during a lack of appropriate and necessary supervision.

In order to prevent improper forensic interviewing, researchers suggest numerous methods to reduce suggestibility and misinformation effects, such as taping interviews, recording transcripts, ensuring supervision by a qualified professional, experience in working with children, training in forensic interviewing, specifically how to accurately ask questions, and maintaining a comfortable, open environment.

Types of Interviewing

The Cognitive Interview utilizes cognitive theory as a focal point to develop interview methodology. The cognitive interview, first developed in 1992 by researchers Fisher and Geiselman, was originally developed for adults and later modified for children. It utilizes two major perspectives from cognitive theory, including the "encoding specificity principle", and a "multi-component view of memory traces".

Specifically, this method utilizes four major techniques:

1. Report everything: i.e.)"tell me everything you remember"
2. Context reinstatement: i.e.)"think back to where you were at the time"
3. Reverse order: i.e.)"now that you told me what happened, try to remember it again but this time starting at the end and recounting it in reverse chronological order"
4. Change perspective: i.e.)"what would the perpetrator have seen and heard?"

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Protocol developed an investigative protocol in 2000 to create a structured interview technique for children, specifically those of child sexual abuse.

It utilizes the following techniques:

1. Introductory phase: This is necessary for rapport building
2. Practice in free-recall: for example, "tell me about your last birthday party"
3. Information about the ground rules: for example, "It's okay to say "I don't know""
4. Open ended questions: "Tell me why you came to talk to me"

Stepwise Interview utilizes open ended questions through a "funnel-like strategy". It is primarily used for legal purposes, and is quite often used in Canada. This interview begins with open-ended questions and/or free recall and slowly incorporates more focused questions.

Allegation Blind Interviews stress that an interviewer should refrain from gathering information prior to an interview in order to reduce suggestibility, leading questions and increase interviewer patience and attentiveness. This also enhances the interviewers ability to be non-judgmental and objective.

Truth-lie Discussions are most useful prior to commencing abuse-related questioning, as it allows the interviewer to create a baseline with the child about what is "truth" and what is a "lie". The interviewer is encouraged to ask questions with specific, but general examples, such as "Tell me a lie about this chair". This strategy has been proven to result in less misinformed child testimony.

Touch Survey was developed on the basis that "touch falls on a continuum", and is beneficial to screen for child abuse. It includes questions surrounding the child's experiences with touch, such as, kissing, hugging, hitting, etc., including where they have been touched and by who. Researchers suggest that this tool might be more useful when used in conjunction with other forensic strategies.

Recommendations for Forensic Interviewing

Although there are varying suggestions for structured forensic interviewing, researchers provide context into best practices that can significantly reduce suggestibility, false memories and the misinformation effect:

1. Interviews should be conducted in a safe, child-friendly environment
2. A child's age should be considered when being interviewed, and practices should be modified accordingly
3. Structured interview protocol should always be utilized
4. Interviewers should engage in professional training when possible
5. Ground rules are essential for the beginning of the interview so that the child is aware of the type of responses they can provide

References:

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Note This page has been created by students in a PhD Level seminar on research in developmental psychology. The assignment was to create a page based on course readings (Topic = How children evaluate information and its source) that reliably reflects current thinking in the field, and communicates this in a way that is accessible for readers unfamiliar with the concepts described here.

Category:Child development Category:Issues in ethics Category:Information