Academics within Lancaster’s Psychology Department have been examining how toddlers share information with other people, finding that younger children are less particular about the types of details they share.

Previous research shows that older children, after learning new concepts, tend to prioritise sharing “generalisable” knowledge—information that can be widely applied (e.g., "dogs bark") - over more specific details that have limited application (e.g., "this dog has spots").

However, while it is clear that two-year-olds can differentiate between general and specific information, it is still relatively unclear as to whether they share the same preference to pass on more generalisable information as older children and adults do. This ability is important because generalisable information constitutes a large portion of our world knowledge but also particularly difficult to measure in young children due to their developing language and other cognitive skills.

Now a team of researchers at Lancaster – led by PhD student Didar Karadag – has devised a method of measuring a child’s ability to transfer information, even in the absence of (advanced) language.

In the study, children were introduced to a new toy designed by the researchers—a box with two buttons: one square and one round. Pressing one button played a tune, while the other controlled different effects. After learning how the toy worked, the child was given two more boxes to explore. Across all the boxes, the round button always played a tune, whereas the square button’s function varied – it made the box vibrate, turn on the lights, or make a noise. The round button’s purpose was therefore generalisable, whereas the square button’s functions were specific to each box.

After playing with these boxes, the children were then presented with a “naïve” adult to instruct on how to use the box. Unlike in verbal tasks conducted with older children, however, the experimenters saw no real preference for communicating the more general round button’s function over the square button’s more specific purposes to these adults. Full details of the findings can be found in the paper published in Developmental Science.

On the results of the experiment, Didar commented: “Our findings suggest that toddlers who are successful information transmitters have not yet developed a clear preference for sharing generalisable information, unlike older children. This may be due to the early stage of cognitive development, or the non-verbal nature of the tasks used in the study.

“In another funded project, we are exploring how the type of generalisable information (whether it relays neutral or health-related information) affects children's preferences for sharing generalisable information. These results will advance our understanding of children’s selective sharing of generalisable knowledge by uncovering the limits in early childhood and in certain learning contexts.”

Didar’s PhD supervisor, Dr Marina Bazhydai added: “This innovative study asked a question fundamental to our understanding of the early cognitive abilities in children – how they treat knowledge about the world when it comes to sharing it with others. It paints a more nuanced picture than could be inferred from previous research – that the adult-like choices observed in children are not yet present in toddlers”.