Abstract
Prior research on children’s selective exploration indicates an early emerging sensitivity to knowledge uncertainty, which in turn guides children’s exploration and improves their learning about novel objects and their properties. Such exploration, whether it takes the form of questions or of first-hand exploration, is often aimed at obtaining explanations for these surprising phenomena. When presented with a surprising claim, older children engage in more exploration than younger children; they also engage in more targeted exploration. These age-related differences in exploration may reflect age-related increases in the ability to reason about why a surprising claim may or may not be true—their understanding of the link between claims and evidence. In this talk, I will some of my prior research leading me to this proposal. I will also present data from an (ongoing) study that test the hypothesis that older children’s decision that knowledge is incomplete will vary depending on whether they are provided with a claim that does vs. does not include an explanation.