2-005 - Pedagogy and Ostension from Comparative and Developmental Perspectives

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

What does sensitivity to ostensive or pedagogical cues mean for children of different ages, or animals of different species? This symposium brings together research on infants, pre-schoolers, non-human primates and dogs, to discuss new data on how ostensive cues influence what members of these different groups attend to, learn or decide to copy. Hernik & Csibra show that young infants have a bias to interpret even very minimal cues as directional when accompanied by infant-directed speech. Butler and Tomasello find that 2- and 3-year-old children clearly distinguish between pedagogical demonstrations and non-pedagogical actions, but that their use of that distinction in guiding their generalizations depends heavily on other contextual factors. Viryani & Range show that the communicative context changes the behaviour of dogs in several different paradigms: such as gaze following and imitation. Buchsbaum et al. show that capuchin monkeys can perhaps differentiate unintentional, intentional and pedagogical demonstrations when deciding what to copy, and may therefore be sensitive to at least some of the ostensive cues associated with human pedagogy. By bringing these disparate research strands together we will be able to discuss the role played by sensitivity to ostensive cues over evolution and development. We hope to stimulate debate around the issue of how these different groups interpret ostensive and pedagogical displays. By what mechanism does ostensive communication influence behaviour?

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chairs

• Amanda Seed, University of St. Andrews

• Daphna Buchsbaum, University of Toronto

Individual Presentations

• Two- and 3-Year-Olds Integrate Linguistic and Pedagogical Cues in Making Inductive Generalizations - Presenting Author: Lucas P Butler, Univ of Maryland College Park; Michael Tomasello, Max Planck Institute

• Effects of Ostensive Human Communication on Dog Cognition: Errors and Successes - Presenting Author: Zsófia Virányi, Comparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Medical University of Vienna, University of Vienna; Friederike Range, Comparative Cognition, Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Medical University of Vienna, University of Vienna Wolf Science Center

• Ostensive Signals Bias Six-month-olds to Resolve the Direction of Ambiguous Apparent Motion by Assuming Eye-like Contrast Polarity - Presenting Author: Mikolaj Hernik, Central European University; Gergely Csibra, Central European University

• How Do Manipulations of Intentionality, Pedagogy and Causality Affect Copying Behaviour in Children and Capuchin Monkeys? - Presenting Author: Daphna Buchsbaum, University of Toronto; Emma C. Tecwyn, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews; Thomas L. Griffiths, University of California, Berkeley; Alison Gopnik, Univ of California-Berkeley; Amanda Seed, University of St. Andrews