Elizabeth J. Robinson

Shared workspaces: how do they work and when are they useful?

Abstract We investigated the effect on synchronous communication of adding a Shared Workspace to audio, for three tasks possessing key representative features of workplace activity. We examined the content and effectiveness of remote audio communication between pairs of participants, who worked with and without the addition of the Workspace. For an undemanding task requiring the joint production of brief textual summaries, we found no benefits associated with adding the Workspace. For a more demanding text editing task, the Workspace initially hampered performance but, with task practice, participants performed more efficiently than with audio alone. When the task was graphical design, the Workspace was associated with greater communication efficiency and also changed the nature of communication. The Workspace permits the straightforward expression of spatial relations and locations, gesturing, and the monitoring and coordination of activity by direct visual inspection. The results suggest that, for demanding text-based tasks, or for complex graphical tasks, there are overall benefits in adding a visual channel in the form of a Workspace. These benefits occur despite the costs involved in attempting to coordinate activity with this unfamiliar form of communication. Our findings provide evidence for early claims about putative Workspace benefits. We also interpret these results in the context of a theory of mediated communication.

Are errors in false belief tasks symptomatic of a broader difficulty with counterfactuality

Abstract When children acknowledge false belief they are handling a counterfactual situation. In three experiments 3-and 4-year-old children were given false belief tasks and physical state tasks which required similar handling of counterfactual situations but which did not require understanding about beliefs or representations: Children were asked to report what the state of the world might be now had an earlier event not occurred. The incidence of realist errors in the false belief and physical state tasks was significantly correlated independently of shared correlations with chronological age and receptive verbal ability. In a fourth experiment, children made significantly fewer realist errors when asked to infer a future hypothetical state. These results provide preliminary evidence consistent with the suggestion that pre-school childrens difficulty with false belief is symptomatic of a more general difficulty entertaining counterfactual situations.

Children’s Trust in Previously Inaccurate Informants Who Were Well or Poorly Informed: When Past Errors Can Be Excused

Past research demonstrates that children learn from a previously accurate speaker rather than from a previously inaccurate one. This study shows that children do not necessarily treat a previously inaccurate speaker as unreliable. Rather, they appropriately excuse past inaccuracy arising from the speakers limited information access. Children (N= 67) aged 3, 4, and 5 years aimed to identify a hidden toy in collaboration with a puppet as informant. When the puppet had previously been inaccurate despite having full information, children tended to ignore what they were told and guess for themselves: They treated the puppet as unreliable in the longer term. However, children more frequently believed a currently well-informed puppet whose past inaccuracies arose legitimately from inadequate information access.

Contamination in reasoning about false belief: an instance of realist bias in adults but not children

Children aged around 5 and 9 years and adults were presented with stories and videos about a protagonist who heard a message purporting to provide factual information. Observing subjects knew whether the message was true or false. In some cases, this message contradicted the listeners existing belief based on what he or she had seen previously. Subjects judged whether the listener would believe or disbelieve the message. Child subjects frequently judged that a contradicting message would be disbelieved, irrespective of whether they (the child subjects) knew it to be true or false. In contrast, adult subjects made judgements that were contaminated by their own privileged knowledge of the truth. For three different scenarios, adult subjects judged more frequently that the message would be believed if they (but not the listener protagonist) knew it to be true, than if they thought it was false.

Children's Ability to Infer Utterance Veracity From Speaker Informedness.

Children between the ages of 3 years 7 months and 6 years 5 months experienced a contradiction between what they knew or guessed to be inside a box and what they were told by an adult. The authors investigated whether children believed what they were told by asking them to make a final judgment about the boxs content. Children tended to believe utterances from speakers who were better informed than they themselves were and to disbelieve those from less well-informed speakers, with no age-related differences. This behavior implies an understanding of the speakers knowledge and suggests that children can learn from oral input while being appropriately skeptical of its truth. Children also gave explicit knowledge judgments on trials on which no utterances were given. Performance on knowledge trials was less accurate than, and unrelated to, performance on utterance trials. Research on childrens developing explicit theory of mind needs to be broadened to include behavioral indexes of understanding the mind.

Lay conceptions of the ethical and scientific justifications for random allocation in clinical trials

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) play a central role in modern medical advance, and they require participants who understand and accept the procedures involved. Published evidence suggests that RCT participants often fail to understand that treatments are allocated at random and that clinicians are in equipoise about which treatment is best. We examine background assumptions that members of the public might draw upon if invited to take part in a RCT. Four studies (N=82; 67; 67; 128), in the UK, identified whether members of the public (i). accept that an individual clinician might be genuinely unsure which of two treatments was better; (ii). judge that when there is uncertainty it is acceptable to suggest deciding at random; (iii). recognise scientific benefits of random allocation to treatment conditions in a trial. Around half the participants were loathe to accept that a clinician could be completely uncertain, and this was no different whether the context was one of individual treatment or research. Most participants found it unacceptable to suggest allocating treatment at random, though there was weak evidence that a research context may reduce the unacceptability. Participants did not judge that more certain knowledge would be gained about which treatment was best when treatments were allocated at random rather than by patient/doctor choice: scientific benefits of randomisation were apparently not recognised. Judgements were no different in non-medical contexts. Results suggest a large mismatch between the assumptions underlying the trial design, and the assumptions that lay participants can bring to bear when they try to make sense of descriptive information about randomisation and equipoise. Previous attempts to improve understanding by improving the clarity or salience of trial information, or of making explicit the research context, while helpful, may need to be supplemented with accessible explanations for random allocation.

Development in the understanding of causes of success and failure in verbal communication

Abstract Each child observed a communication game in which two dolls sent messages to each other so that the listener doll could pick out a matching card. Allocations and justifications of blame were examined as a function of the age of the child, adequacy of message, correctness of choice, and seating position. The results were generally consistent with two propositions. Younger children passed judgements as though they were asking themselves whether the message sent was inconsistent with the speakers card — only when this was so was the speaker blamed. Older children blamed the speaker and cited the inadequacy of the message whenever the message did not identify the speakers card uniquely, even when communication was successful.

Knowing when you don't know enough: Children's judgements about ambiguous information

Abstract Two experiments were carried out to find out whether young childrens failure to realise when messages are ambiguous is specific to verbally transmitted information about a persons intended meaning. In Experiment 1, children judged whether they had been told/shown enough to identify which one of a set of cards the experimenter had chosen. In one game the experimenter gave verbal messages about her chosen cards, and in a second game, she gave visual messages. With ambiguous visual messages, relevant parts of cards were physically covered. We expected that this would make it more obvious that the speakers intended meaning was not being fully conveyed. No difference was found between verbal and visual conditions: correct judgements about message ambiguity occured with the same frequency in both. In Experiment 2, children judged in one game whether they had been told enough about the experimenters chosen card, as in Experiment 1. In a second game, visual information about a card was not conveyed by the experimenter, Rather, the child operated a pointer, set in a disc with windows, beneath which lay cards. The child judged whether the window showed enough for him/her to tell which card the pointer indicated. Again, correct judgments about ambiguity occured with the same frequency in both games. The results implied that childrens failure to realise when verbal messages are ambiguous is but one aspect of a more general failure to realise when one has insufficient information at ones disposal to guarantee a correct interpretation of what the world is like.

The writing strategies of graduate research students in the social sciences

SummaryA 35-item questionnaire concerning writing habits, experiences of writing and productivity was sent to 228 full-time, U.K. domiciled, social science research students. One hundred and one complete responses were received. Cluster analysis was used to identify three distinct groups of students in terms of the strategies they used when writing: “Planners”, who planned extensively and then made few revisions, “Revisers”, who developed content and structure through extensive revision, and “Mixed Strategy” writers, who both planned before starting to write and revised extensively as part of their writing processes. The Planners reponed higher productivity than both the Revisers and Mixed Strategy Writers. Planners and Revisers did not differ significantly in how difficult they found writing to be; Planners found writing less difficult than did the Mixed Strategy Writers. We conclude that working from a plan can be an effective writing strategy for some, but that planning is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for writing success.

Children's understanding about white lies

In three experiments, children suggested and justified a verbal response for a story character who received a disappointing gift. In Experiment 1, responses suggesting falsely that the recipient liked the gift were increasingly common over the ages 4–9 years. Children who suggested false responses judged that the giver would believe the gift was liked and would be happy following the falsehood. They also predicted that the giver would be unhappy had the truth been told, and passed a test of second-order false belief. However, many children who suggested truthful responses, that the gift was disliked, also revealed a full understanding of the consequences of giving true and false responses, and also passed second-order false belief. Mental-state understanding was developmentally prior to suggesting a false response. In Experiment 2, involving 6-, 8- and 10-year-olds, more children suggested false verbal than false facial responses. In Experiments 2 and 3, giving children the pro-social reason for falsifying increased the incidence of false responses, even amongst children who appeared not to be able to handle second-order mental states. In Experiment 3, 6-year-olds suggested truthful responses just as frequently, whether the speaker was an adult or a child. Many young children apparently place more weight on truth-telling than on protecting the feelings of a gift-giver.