Three‐year‐old Children Make Explicit Metacognitive Judgments – If Asked Appropriately
Marlene M Meyer, Marina Proft, Jan Engelmann, Hannes Rakoczy · 2026
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Description
Marlene M Meyer, Marina Proft, Jan Engelmann, and Hannes Rakoczy test whether three-year-olds know when they do not know. Older work said clear judgments about one's own knowledge arrive near school age, yet those tests asked children alone. Across four pre-registered studies with 195 children, this team placed three- and five-year-olds in a social task where a partner depended on the child's advice despite partial views of a hidden setup.
Even the three-year-olds spoke up about doubt when they had seen only part of the picture, and they stayed confident when they had seen it all. Two control studies gave mixed clues about why the social setting helped. Knowing may be voiced earlier when a child must guide someone else.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Marlene M Meyer, Marina Proft, Jan Engelmann, Hannes Rakoczy |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 50 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |