Learning From Violation of Expectations in the Domain of Agents

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Starting from a young age, infants form basic expectations about objects and agents in the world. Past research has shown that expectancy violation in the domain of objects promotes exploration and learning in infants and young children (Stahl & Feigenson, 2015, 2017). How would expectancy violation in the domain of agents affect infants’ and children’s learning? This symposium brings together new research on learning from violation of expectations about agents in different contexts.

Paper 1 shows that violation of expectations about the emotional responses and preferences of others boosts infants’ learning about the objects involved in the violation. In contrast, paper 2 shows that observing an agent act inefficiently reduces infants’ willingness to learn from the agent compared to an agent who acts efficiently. Paper 2 also examines whether observing an agent violate a physical principle would have similar consequences on infants’ selective social learning. Paper 3 demonstrates that violation of expectations about agents can lead to belief revision in young children. After children observe multiple pieces of evidence that violate their core beliefs about agents, they revise these beliefs and generalize their revised beliefs to new agents.

Together, these findings show that infants and children use expectancy violation in the domain of agents as important information that helps them determine what to learn in different contexts. An expert in social learning will synthesize these findings and discuss their implications for future research on expectancy violation and learning.

Sub Unit

• Attention, Learning, Memory

Chair

• Rongzhi Liu, University of California - Berkeley

Discussant

• Hyowon Gweon, Stanford University

Individual Presentations

• To Learn or not to Learn? Surprise-Induced Learning Following Violations of Social Expectations - Presenting Author: Qiong Cao, Johns Hopkins University; Alexis Sierra Smith-Flores, University of California - San Diego; Jasmin Perez, Johns Hopkins University; Lisa Feigenson, Johns Hopkins University

• Do Expectancy Violations About Psychological and Physical Intuitions Guide Selective Social Learning in Infancy? - Presenting Author: Marc Colomer, University of Chicago; Yueyi Lei, University of Chicago; Amanda Woodward, University of Chicago

• Are Core Beliefs About Agents Revisable? Evidence From Preschoolers. - Presenting Author: Rongzhi Liu, University of California - Berkeley; Fei Xu, University of California - Berkeley