16 Oct
2012
16 Oct
'12
10:29 a.m.
PLEASE NOTE: Our seminar room has a limited capacity. Please arrive early to ensure you
get a seat. The talk will begin promptly at 5.
The next talk in the CDC Seminar series will be given by:
Liz Robinson, The University of Warwick
Date: Wednesday, October 17, 2012, 5 PM
Location: Cognitive Development Center, Hattyú u. 14, 3rd floor
To Believe or Disbelieve what we’re Told? Understanding about Transfer of Knowledge
Abstract: I shall contrast two different bases for judging whether or not an apparently
well-intentioned informant’s testimony is likely to be reliable. In the first, the
informant serves as a proxy for the self, gaining the knowledge that we would gain if we
had that same experience. For example, our informant looks out the window and tells us
that the taxi has arrived. Assuming the informant is well-intentioned, it is reasonable to
believe that the taxi has indeed arrived. Under circumstances such as these we can make an
accurate evaluation of the truth of what we are told, but we gain only specific knowledge.
For gaining generalizable and culture-specific knowledge such as names or function of
objects, we need to determine whether our informant has characteristics indicative of
being generally knowledgeable, such as having a history of accuracy. Our prediction of
trustworthiness will be rough and ready, and could just be based on rules of thumb rather
than understanding of knowledge transfer. I shall summarize experiments examining
children’s understanding that a person with a history of inaccuracy will not necessarily
be unreliable in the future (their errors might be due to circumstances that no longer
hold), while a person with a history of accuracy will not necessarily be reliable (they
might have had external help that is no longer available). Taking such circumstances into
account demands understanding of knowledge transfer.
Cognitive Science Events at CEU: http://cognitivescience.ceu.hu/events
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