PNAS:婴儿通过交流不确定性从而要求帮助
法国巴黎高等师范学院和法国国家科学研究中心一项研究发现，幼儿监测不确定性的内部水平，用非言语的方式与其他人共享这一信息从而完成困难的任务。从昆虫到灵长类这一范围的动物都会通过监测不确定性的内部水平从而优化决策策略。人类是已知唯一能够向其他人明确交流不确定性的物种，但是尚不清楚这种独特的能力究竟是起源于发育早期还是语言习得之后。Sid Kouider及其同事测试了80名20个月龄的人类婴儿是否会寻求帮助从而避免在一个非言语记忆任务中出错。这些婴儿需要记忆藏在一张桌子上的两个盒子之中的一个的下面的玩具的位置。在3到12秒范围的可变的延迟之后，要求这些婴儿指出含有这个玩具的盒子。在称为“可能”的试验中，婴儿看到实验者把这个玩具放入盒子里，但是在称为“不可能”的试验中，这个玩具是在一个帘子之后看不见的地方被隐藏起来的。这些婴儿通过看着它们的父母的眼睛，明确地要求帮助，从而避免指向错误的位置。与可能的试验以及记忆延迟时间短的试验相比，这样的不确定性的非言语交流在不可能的试验和记忆延迟时间长的试验中出现的可能性更大。这组作者说，幼儿会监测不确定性的内部水平并且与他人用非言语的方式共享这种信息，从而成功地完成困难的任务。
原文链接：
Infants ask for help when they know they don’t know
原文摘要：
Uncertainty monitoring is a core property of metacognition, allowing individuals to adapt their decision-making strategies depending on the state of their knowledge. Although it has been argued that other animals share these metacognitive ABIlities, only humans seem to possess the ability to explicitly communicate their own uncertainty to others. It remains unknown whether this capacity is present early in development, or whether it emerges later with the ability to verbally report one’s own mental states. Here, using a nonverbal memory-monitoring paradigm, we show that 20-month-olds can monitor and report their own uncertainty. Infants had to remember the location of a hidden toy before pointing to indicate where they wanted to recover it. In an experimental group, infants were given the possibility to ask for help through nonverbal communication when they had forgotten the toy location. Compared with a control group in which infants had no other option but to decide by themselves, infants given the opportunity to ask for help used this option strategically to improve their performance. Asking for help was used selectively to avoid making errors and to decline difficult choICEs. These results demonstrate that infants are able to successfully monitor their own uncertainty and share this information with others to fulfill their goals.
作者：Louise Goupil
