Learning enhancements from core knowledge violations are entity-specific: no benefit for unrelated bystander objects¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · reviewr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2019 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
Reading the evidence codes
q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r
the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.
This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.
q2 i? Infants and children taught about an entirely new object immediately after a violation were no better at learning than those taught after an expected event, arguing against a diffuse arousal account. → Stahl Aimee E. 2019
Evidence¶
Stahl Aimee E. 2019¶
Stahl Aimee E., Feigenson Lisa. (2019). Violations of Core Knowledge Shape Early Learning. Topics in Cognitive Science. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12389
q2 · i? · review · r2
Experiments (Stahl & Feigenson, 2015; 2017) in which the taught object had not participated in the violation. Learning about the bystander object did not differ between surprising and expected preceding events, suggesting learning improves only for entities involved in failed predictions.
"Infants and children were no better at learning about this "innocent bystander" object when taught following a surprising violation event than following an expected event"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Eleven-month-old infants who see a core knowledge violation preferentially explore the violating object over a novel distractor — related
- Core knowledge violations may be 'moderately impossible,' aligning with the Goldilocks effect on attention allocation — related
- Preliminary evidence that infants do not generalize surprise-induced exploration to same-category exemplars — related
- Three- to six-year-old children learn novel verbs and nouns from a single exposure following core knowledge violations, including outside the laboratory — related
- Eleven-month-old infants learn a new object-sound mapping after a surprising core knowledge violation but not after an expected outcome — related
- Infants' exploratory behavior after a core knowledge violation is tailored to the type of violation seen — related
- Impossible but not improbable events boost children's word learning, with step-like rather than graded performance — related
- Infant look-away follows a U-shaped pattern of information content, consistent with maintaining intermediate rates of information absorption (Goldilocks effect) — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
surprise-learning-effect-is-entity-specific |
title |
Learning enhancements from core knowledge violations are entity-specific: no benefit for unrelated bystander objects |
description |
Learning enhancements from core knowledge violations are entity-specific: no benefit for unrelated bystander objects |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2019 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-17 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — stahl-aimee-e-2019 |
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