Psychoblog

Dear all,

We are delighted to announce that Dr. Jan Engelmann (UC Berkeley) will give a talk at the CogSci Colloquium on Wednesday, 18^th June at 14:00 (Please note that this talk does not follow the usual Colloquium time slot.)

Title: DISAGREEMENT DRIVES METACOGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Abstract: Metacognition improves significantly over childhood, but the mechanisms underlying this development are poorly understood. We first review recent research demonstrating that disagreement prompts competent responses by young children across several metacognitive domains (confidence monitoring; information search; source monitoring). Then we propose a mechanistic model of how disagreement facilitates metacognition. We localize one main source of children’s metacognitive limitations in their still-developing capacities to reason about alternative possibilities, which manifest in an overly narrow focus on one hypothesis. Disagreement increases the child’s likelihood of representing alternative hypotheses, thereby promoting improved metacognitive reasoning. The broader proposal is that through repeated experiences of disagreement, children become better at representing alternative possibilities even when reasoning on their own, leading to metacognitive development.

Time: 14:00 pm (Wednesday, June 18^th )
Venue : room 2.111 Waldweg 26

Best regards
Saba

Saba Amirhaftehran
PhD student