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Previous research shows that children evaluate the competence of others based on how effectively someone accomplished a goal, that is, based on the observed outcome of an action (e.g., number of attempts needed). Here, we investigate whether 5- to 10-year-old children and adults infer competence from how efficiently someone solves a task by implementing question-asking strategies of varying expected information gains (EIG). Whereas the efficiency of a strategy defined as EIG is a reliable indicator of competence, the observed effectiveness of actions may depend on unrelated external factors, such as luck. Across two experiments conducted in Germany, we varied how efficiently and how effectively different agents solved a 20-questions game (Experiments 1 and 2) and a maze-exploration game (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1 (N = 121), only adults identified a more efficient agent as more competent, and all participants attributed higher competence to agents needing fewer questions even when they employed the same inefficient strategy. In Experiment 2 (N = 220), adults and children from about 8 years onward successfully identified the agents using the more efficient strategy as more competent. Overall, our results suggest that observed effectiveness is a powerful cue for competence even when such an inference may not be warranted and that the ability to make explicit competence judgments based on the efficiency of a strategy alone emerges around 8 years of age, although, as shown in previous work, a more implicit understanding of competence may already be present during the preschool years.

Previous research suggests that children’s information search remains largely inefficient until age 4. Here, we investigate the early emergence of children’s information-search competence using a simplified version of Lindow’s (2021) finding-presents game. Children (n = 86, 24- to 59-months old) had to find a present hidden in one of three closed boxes. All boxes were identical but for one feature (e.g., all boxes were blue and had a flower icon on top, but one box was round, one heart-shaped, and one squared). To identify the target box, children received three information cards revealing one feature of the target box (i.e., its color, shape, or icon). As the boxes differed in only one feature (e.g., their shape), only one information card contained the relevant information to the decision (i.e., the information card indicating the correct shape). Children could flip one information card to learn about one particular feature before deciding which box to open. This was our dependent measure. Our findings indicate that children as young as 2 years can efficiently search for information to guide their decisions and underline the importance of using age-appropriate paradigms.

We investigate whether a spatial representation of a search task supports 4- to 7-year-old children's information-search strategies, relative to their performance in a question-asking game. Children played two computationally and structurally analogous search games: a spatial search task, the maze-exploration game, in which they had to discover the path through a maze by removing masks covering its passages; and a "verbal search task," the 20-questions game, where they had to identify a target monster from a set of eight monsters by asking yes-no questions. Across four experiments, we found that children searched more efficiently when they could make queries nonverbally (Experiments 1 and 2a). We also found that merely providing children with a visual conceptual aid that supports their representation of the hypothesis space (Experiment 2b), or familiarizing them with the hypothesis-space structure (Experiment 3) was not sufficient to improve their search strategies. Together, our results suggest that young children's difficulties in the 20-questions game are mainly driven by the verbal requirements of the task. However, they also demonstrate that efficient search strategies emerge much earlier than previously assumed in tasks that do not rely on verbal question generation. These findings highlight the importance of developing age-appropriate paradigms that capture children's early competence, in order to gain a more comprehensive picture of their emerging information-search abilities.

Previous research has suggested that active engagement with the world drives children's remarkable learning capabilities. We investigated whether preschoolers are "ecological learners," that is, whether they are able to select those active learning strategies that are most informative in a given task. Children had to choose which of two exploratory actions (open vs. shake) to perform to find an egg shaker hidden in one of four small boxes, contained in two larger boxes. Prior to this game, children either learnt that the egg was equally likely to be found in any of the four small boxes (Uniform condition), or that it was most likely to be found in one particular small box (Skewed condition). Results of Study 1 show that 3- and 4-year-olds successfully tailored their exploratory actions to the different likelihood-distributions: They were more likely to shake first in the Uniform compared to the Skewed condition. Five-year-olds were equally likely to shake first, irrespective of condition, even when incentivized to shake only when needed (Study 2a). However, when the relevance of the frequency training for the hiding game was highlighted (Study 2b and Study 2c), the 5-year-olds showed the same behavioural pattern as the younger preschoolers in Study 1. We suggest that ecological learning may be a key mechanism underlying children's effectiveness in active learning.

Previous research has shown that active engagement driveschildren’s remarkable learning capabilities. We investigatedwhether preschoolers are ecological learners, able to selectthose active learning strategies that are most informative in agiven task. Children (n = 114; 3 to 5 years old) chose betweentwo exploratory actions (opening vs. shaking) to find an eggshaker hidden in one of four small boxes, contained in twolarger boxes. Prior to this game, children learnt that the eggwas equally likely to be in any of the four small boxes(Uniform condition), or that it was most likely to be in oneparticular small box (Skewed condition). Results show that 3-and 4-year-olds, but not 5-year-olds, successfully tailored theirexploratory actions to these different likelihood distributions.We suggest that ecological learning may be a key mechanismexplaining how children can efficiently learn about the worldaround them.

Although children's sensitivity to others' informativeness emerges early in life, their active information search becomes robustly efficient only around age 10. Young children's difficulty in asking efficient questions has often been hypothesized to be linked to their developing verbal competence and growing vocabulary. In this paper, we offer for the first time a quantitative analysis of 4- to 6-year-old children's information search competence by using a non-verbal version of the 20-questions game, to gain a more comprehensive and fair picture of their active learning abilities. Our results show that, even in this version, preschoolers performed worse than simulated random agents, requiring more queries to reach the solution. However, crucially, preschoolers performed better than the simulated random agents when isolating the extra, unnecessary queries, which are made after only one hypothesis is left. When additionally isolating all the unnecessary queries, children's performance looked on par with that of the simulated optimal agents. Our study replicates and enriches previous research, showing an increase in efficiency across the preschool-aged years, but also a general lack of optimality that seems to be fundamentally driven by children's strong tendency to make unnecessary queries, rather than by their verbal immaturity. We discuss how children's non-optimal, conservative information-search strategies may be adaptive, after all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]