The double-edged sword of pedagogy: Instruction limits spontaneous exploration and discovery

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Elizabeth Bonawitz^{a, , 1}, Patrick Shafto^{b, , 1,} , Hyowon Gweon^c, Noah D. Goodman^d, Elizabeth Spelke^e and Laura Schulz^c

^a Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
^b Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292, USA
^c Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
^d Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
^e Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

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.

Article Outline

1.

Introduction

2.

Experiment 1

2.1. Methods

2.1.1. Participants

2.1.2. Design

2.1.3. Materials

2.1.4. Procedure

2.2. Results and discussion

3.

Experiment 2

3.1. Methods

3.1.1. Participants

3.1.2. Design

3.1.3. Materials

3.1.4. Procedure

3.1.4.1. Observation phase

3.1.4.2. Play phase

3.2. Results and discussion

4.

General discussion

Acknowledgements

References

Fig. 1. Novel toy stimuli used in Experiments 1 and 2.

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Corresponding authors.
¹ The first two authors contributed equally to this work.