To figure out what happened in the past, we often rely on others’ testimony. One challenge is that people can disagree in their interpretations of what happened. We will investigate children’s use of disagreement as evidence for what happened, specifically, inferring that the event itself was ambiguous and could generate multiple interpretations. Children (N = 50; 7 to 11 years) will hear two observers’ testimony, in which the observers either agreed about another speaker’s desires (e.g., both observers agreed that the speaker wanted an intervention) or disagreed (one observer was sure the speaker wanted the intervention, while the other observer was sure the speaker did not want it). Children will then be asked to infer which of three events happened: the speaker uttered an unambiguous request (should be inferred more in agreement trials), an ambiguous request (should be inferred more in disagreement trials), or a random statement (neither trial type).

Inferences from Disagreement

Research has documented children’s understanding that a choice made when constrained to a single option is a poor indicator of another person’s preference. However, when constraints are constant over time—as they often are in social contexts—they may lose their salience. We examined whether children (N = 133, 5- to 12-year-olds) were more likely to refrain from inferring that a constrained actor prefers their choice if they first observe unconstrained actors (Alternatives condition) compared to if they only observe constrained actors (Constant condition). Presence of alternatives was crossed with constraint type: either the second option was hard to access or there was no other option. In line with our predictions, results indicated that observing alternative situations with greater choice increased children’s subsequent attention to constraints. Effects were stronger for the hard to access constraint and for older children.

The Role of Alternatives in Children’s Reasoning about Constrained Choices

A deep understanding of any phenomenon requires knowing how its causal elements are related to one another. Here, we examine whether children recognize similar causal structures across superficially distinct events. We presented 4- to 7-year-olds with three-variable narratives in which story events unfold according to a causal chain or a common effect structure. We then asked children to make judgments about which stories are the most similar. Results indicate that the ability to recognize and use abstract causal structure as a metric of similarity develops gradually between the ages of 4 and 7: While we find no evidence that 4-year-olds recognize the common causal structure between events, 7-year-olds have a relatively mature understanding of causal system categories when making similarity judgements. Five- and 6-year-olds show mixed success. We discuss these findings in light of children’s developing causal and abstract reasoning and propose directions for future work.

Children's Use of Causal Structure When Making Similarity Judgments

Counterfactual theories of causal judgment propose that people infer causality between events by comparing an actual outcome with what would have happened in a relevant alternative situation. If the candidate cause is “difference-making”, people infer causality. This framework has not been applied to people’s judgments about unprecedented societal events (e.g., global pandemics), in which people have limited causal knowledge (e.g., about effective policies). In these contexts, it is less clear how people reason counterfactually. This study examined this issue. Participants judged whether a mandatory evacuation reduced population bite rates during a novel insect infestation. People tended to rely on prior causal knowledge, unless data from close alternatives (i.e., structurally similar counterfactuals) provided counterevidence. There were also notable individual differences, such that some people privileged prior knowledge regardless of the available counterevidence or privileged far alternatives (i.e., structurally distinct counterfactuals), which may have implications for understanding public disagreement about policy issues.

How People Make Causal Judgments about Unprecedented Societal Events

Children often need to rely on other people’s testimony to figure out what happened. One challenge in learning from others is that people can disagree in their interpretations of what happened. The present research examined how children ages 7 to 11 use disagreement to make inferences about past social events. Specifically, when there is no reason to question the reliability of either informant, can children use disagreement to infer that an ambiguous social event occurred? Experiment 1 (N = 52) found that children are indeed more likely to infer that an ambiguous social event occurred after learning that people disagreed (versus agreed) about what happened and that this ability strengthens with age. Experiment 2 (n = 43; data collection ongoing) examines how children make this inference. We predict that children’s ability to reason about what would cause disagreement is critical to make inferences from disagreement about what happened.

Children use disagreement to infer what happened

FT72: Social Cognition 3

poster

Join us for CogSci2022! Our 44th Annual Conference will be centered around the theme of diversity, with an accompanying range of keynotes and invited speakers who themselves highlight the diversity of our field. Our three symposia are Cognition across Diverse Populations, Cognition within Diverse Societies, and Global Challenges for Cognitive Science. The conference is being offered in a fully hybrid environment for onsite and online attendees.
 
 [**The Program at a Glance can be found here**](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Cogsci-2022-PAAG-Detailed-July-12final-1.pdf)
 [**The Detailed Program can be found here**](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/DeArmond-CogSci2022-program-v113-final.pdf)

This conference requires a registration to attend. Please use the link below to secure your ticket. The website will be available to all registered attendees on July 25th. 

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Registration Is Required

CogSci 2022

The 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society highlighted research on the theme Cognitive Diversity in addition to the full breadth and diversity of research topics offered by the society’s membership. 





T10: Development 1

technical paper


**For a full list of posters in this session, click the See All link on the right side of the page.**

Poster Session 1 -  H: Psychological Science

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**Dear Colleagues,**

Welcome to the 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society! 

This year’s conference brings together the latest research from all Cognitive Science and also highlights this year’s theme **Comparative Cognition: Animal Minds.** 

The program features four plenary speakers: Friederike Range (University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna), Onur Güntürkün (Ruhr University Bochum), Julia Fischer (University of Göttingen), and Erich Jarvis (The Rockefeller University). The keynotes and invited symposia showcase the broad spectrum of ideas that encompass the conference theme of comparative cognition. 

Further, the program includes the Rumelhart Prize keynote presentation by Susan Goldin-Meadow (University of Chicago), and symposia to celebrate the winner of the Elman Prize: Wei Ji Ma (New York University), the Heineken Award winner Robert Zatorre (McGill University), and the Robert J. Glushko Dissertation Prizes session.

The program committee for CogSci 2021 received 1,025 submissions, including 710 full papers, 275 member abstracts, 8 publication-based talks, as well as 15 proposals for symposia, and 17 for workshops and tutorials. After a rigorous review process, the committee selected 152 papers for oral presentation and inclusion in the conference proceedings (14.8%), 332 papers for poster presentation and inclusion in the proceedings (32.4%), and 175 papers for poster presentation with inclusion of abstracts in the proceedings (17.1%) We also selected 275 submitted member abstracts. In addition, we accepted 6 publication-based talks, 12 symposia, and 9 workshops and tutorials to make for an exciting and inclusive program.

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**Your Program Chairs,**
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To review the proceedings for the conference or review the searchable program, please visit the [website](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/program/).

CogSci 2021

The Cognitive Science Society brings together researchers from around the world who hold a common goal: understanding the nature of the human mind. The mission of the Society is to promote Cognitive Science as a discipline, and to foster scientific interchange among researchers in various areas of study, including Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics, Anthropology, Psychology, Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Education. The Society is a non-profit professional organization and its activities include sponsoring an annual conference and publishing the journals Cognitive Science and TopiCS.

**Session Chair: **Antonia Hamilton 
**Technical Session Chair: **Tiffany Doan 
**Session Description: ** The session is comprised of 15 minute talks followed by up to 5 minutes of live Q&A time for each presenter.

IP25: Social & judgements

This session has no scheduled virtual poster presentation time, but attendees will be able to comment and ask questions about your work/research asynchronously throughout the conference. 

**If you are a virtual poster presenter**, you can leave a message in your poster area chat space to advise times (and time zone) that you will be available either in the chat box, or by setting up your own online meeting room (Zoom, etc.). 
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Virtual Posters

The 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society will take place in Sydney, Australia as a modified hybrid conference. Presentations from the main-session room will be live-streamed every day for all events. This will include all invited talks and award sessions. Recordings of all CogSci 2023 sessions will be made available for on-demand viewing after the conference. 
The in-person component will be held at the International Convention Centre Sydney at Darling Harbour. The Conference will take place Wednesday July 26th – Saturday July 29th, 2023 (Wednesday, July 26th is the Workshops Day).

Join us!

 [**The Program at a Glance can be found here**](https://cognitivesciencesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/COgSci-PAAG-V2.pdf)
 [**The Detailed Program can be found here**](https://online.fliphtml5.com/ebtyf/mswz/)
 

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CogSci 2023

The 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society presents the latest research across cognitive science and highlights the theme of Cognition in Context.

Jamie Amemiya

5

2

SHORT BIO

Presentations

Inferences from Disagreement

The Role of Alternatives in Children’s Reasoning about Constrained Choices

Children's Use of Causal Structure When Making Similarity Judgments

How People Make Causal Judgments about Unprecedented Societal Events

Children use disagreement to infer what happened

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