@article{123576,
  keywords = {Humans, Female, Male, Learning, Adolescent, Child, Age Factors, Problem Solving, Child Development, Adaptation, Psychological},
  author = {Azzurra Ruggeri and Tania Lombrozo},
  title = {Children adapt their questions to achieve efficient search},
  abstract = {<p>One way to learn about the world is by asking questions. We investigate how younger children (7- to 8-year-olds), older children (9- to 11-year-olds), and young adults (17- to 18-year-olds) ask questions to identify the cause of an event. We find a developmental shift in children{\textquoteright}s reliance on hypothesis-scanning questions (which test hypotheses directly) versus constraint-seeking questions (which reduce the space of hypotheses), but also that all age groups ask more constraint-seeking questions when hypothesis-scanning questions are least likely to pay off: When the solution is one among equally likely alternatives (Study 1) or when the problem is difficult (Studies 1 and 2). These findings are the first to demonstrate that even young children dynamically adapt their strategies for inquiry to increase the efficiency of information search.</p>
},
  year = {2015},
  journal = {Cognition},
  volume = {143},
  pages = {203-216},
  issn = {1873-7838},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.07.004},
  language = {eng},
}