The Double-edged Sword of Pedagogy: Instruction limits spontaneous exploration and discovery
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Schulz_The double-edged.pdf
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363.64 KB
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Author(s)
Bonawitz, Elizabeth
Shafto, Patrick
Gweon, Hyowon
Schulz, Laura E.
Goodman, Noah D.
Spelke, Elizabeth
Alternative Title
The double-edged sword of pedagogy: Teaching limits children’s spontaneous exploration and discovery
Date Issued
January 2011
Journal
Cognition
Publisher
Elsevier B.V.
Citation
Bonawitz, Elizabeth, et al. "The Double-edged Sword of Pedagogy: Instruction Limits Spontaneous Exploration and Discovery." Article in press in Cognition.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Motivated by computational analyses, we look at how teaching affects exploration and discovery. In Experiment 1, we investigated children’s exploratory play after an adult pedagogically demonstrated a function of a toy, after an interrupted pedagogical demonstration, after a naïve adult demonstrated the function, and at baseline. Preschoolers in the pedagogical condition focused almost exclusively on the target function; by contrast, children in the other conditions explored broadly. In Experiment 2, we show that children restrict their exploration both after direct instruction to themselves and after overhearing direct instruction given to another child; they do not show this constraint after observing direct instruction given to an adult or after observing a non-pedagogical intentional action. We discuss these findings as the result of rational inductive biases. In pedagogical contexts, a teacher’s failure to provide evidence for additional functions provides evidence for their absence; such contexts generalize from child to child (because children are likely to have comparable states of knowledge) but not from adult to child. Thus, pedagogy promotes efficient learning but at a cost: children are less likely to perform potentially irrelevant actions but also less likely to discover novel information.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Terms of Use
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2010.10.001
