2018 Friday Poster 6396

Friday, November 2, 2018 | Poster Session I, Metcalf Small | 3pm

How we reason about innateness
I. Berent, G. Sandoboe, M. Platt

The origin of knowledge is a notoriously controversial topic of inquiry. Here, we ask whether the difficulties to advance this debate could be partly due to the human inquirer: are people systematically biased in reasoning about innate ideas?

In six experiments, we asked adult participants to reason about cognitive and non-cognitive traits (sensory, motor, and emotional) of adults, infants, and nonhuman creatures. Results consistently showed that people are selectively biased against the possibility that cognitive traits are innate.

Experiments 1-3 examined numerous traits that are either broadly documented ethnographically or known to emerge in young infants. Results showed that people viewed cognitive traits as less likely to be innate compared to sensory, motor, and emotional traits. Specifically, Experiment 1 presented people with numerous traits that are broadly documented ethnographically.

Participants asserted that cognitive traits (‘forming sentences’) to be less likely to emerge spontaneously in a desert island situation compared to motor (‘squatting down’) and emotive (‘fear of danger’) traits (Tukey HSD, p<.0002; see Figure 1a-b). Experiment 2 presented participants with numerous traits documented in infant research. Participants maintained that cognitive traits (‘Expecting stationary objects to move only if contacted by other moving objects’) are less likely to spontaneously emerge in infants relative to motor traits (‘Looking for something to suck on when their cheek is stroked’; p<.0002; see Figure 1c-d). In each experiment, there was a strong negative correlation between the classification of a trait with “thinking” (as determined by another group of participants) and its innateness (r= -.68, t(78)=- 3.33, p<.002; r= -.817, t(30)=-7.76, p< .0001)– the stronger the association of a trait with “thinking”, the less likely it was to be seen as spontaneously emerging (i.e., innate).

To ensure that participants understand that it is possible to scientifically gauge the cognitive capacities of infants, Experiment 3 presented participants with detailed descriptions of published experiments with young infants and asked people make a binary response. People correctly predicted that newborns exhibit emotional preferences for smiling faces (Z=2.91, p<.0004), but they incorrectly predicted that infants lack notions of number (two vs. four dots; Z=2.01, p<.05), syllable structure (blog vs. lbog, Z<1), and moral preferences (helper vs. hinderer; Z=2.46, p<.02).

To determine whether participants are actively biased against innate ideas, Experiments 4-6 presented people with matched vignettes depicting cognitive and motor traits of various species (humans, animals, and aliens). These descriptions explicitly noted that all traits are universal and early emerging. People, however, still considered cognitive traits as less likely to be innate (for animals: F(1,19)=7.31, p<.02; for aliens: t(39)=2.37, p<.04; for language: t(38)=2.11, p<.05). A control condition (in the language experiment) showed that, as expected, cognitive (syntax) and motor (phonetic) aspects of language are equally likely to emerge when presented as acquired.

These results show for the first time that people are systematically biased in reasoning about the origins of innate ideas.