Abstract:

Humans have some faith in what is communicated to them, even when their informants are complete strangers, who could be mistaken or lying. Where does this trust come from? Although this question was raised more than two centuries ago (e.g. Hume, 1748; Reid, 1764), it remains largely unanswered, in great part because of a lack of appropriate empirical evidence. This presentation targets directly this question by investigating the development of trust in testimony during late infancy, toddlerhood and childhood. I will present evidence suggesting that from 15 months of age, infants’ trust in communication is both strong and smart. It is strong enough to make infants disbelieve what they directly perceived. It is smart enough to include conceptually rich expectations about communicated information, that roughly map onto two classic philosophical definitions of truth: correspondence and coherence theories (e.g. Descartes, 1639; Davidson, 1986). Against the widespread view that young humans become more skeptical as they grow up, I will provide evidence suggesting that infants’ disposition to be trusting increases during the toddler years. Improved communicative abilities and additional opportunities to learn from others could support this developmental stage of heightened trust in communicated information, the “Trusting Twos”. Young human’s disposition to frame communication as an exchange of reliable information supports cultural transmission and learning at large. Yet, I will argue that it also explains young children’s difficulties in lying and in being vigilant towards deception. To some extent, it may also contribute to children’s difficulties in interpreting games and stories involving deceivers and dupes, such as standard false belief tasks.