INFANTS USE STATISTICS WHEN THINKING ABOUT PEOPLE
Imagine you are at a party where there is a large bowl of assorted candies. You see a woman walk up to the bowl and select only Snickers. You might expect that the woman prefers Snickers over all other candies in the bowl. Well, babies think the same thing! When babies see a person chose all blue balls from a box of mostly red, babies believe that the person prefers blue over red balls. In other words, when it is statistically unlikely that a person could choose all blue balls from a box of mostly red balls, babies expect that the person chose all blue balls, not by accident, but because she likes them more.
PUBLICATIONS
INFANTS USE STATISTICAL SAMPLING TO UNDERSTAND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORLD.
2016
INFANTS USE STATISTICAL SAMPLING TO UNDERSTAND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL WORLD
May 2016
Authors: Brink, K.A., Kushnir, T., Xu, F., Peskin-Shepherd, H., Wellman, H.M.
Poster presented at the 28th Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science, Chicago, Il, May 2016