Natural pedagogy

TitleNatural pedagogy
Publication TypeJournal Article
AuthorsCsibra, G., and Gy. Gergely
Journal titleTrends in Cognitive Sciences
Year2009
Pages148 - 153
Volume13
Issue4
Abstract

We propose that human communication is specifically adapted to allow the transmission of generic knowledge between individuals. Such a communication system, which we call 'natural pedagogy', enables fast and efficient social learning of cognitively opaque cultural knowledge that would be hard to acquire relying on purely observational learning mechanisms alone. We argue that human infants are prepared to be at the receptive side of natural pedagogy (i) by being sensitive to ostensive signals that indicate that they are being addressed by communication, (ii) by developing referential expectations in ostensive contexts and (iii) by being biased to interpret ostensive-referential communication as conveying information that is kind-relevant and generalizable.

Languageeng
Notes

exported from refbase (http://www.bibliography.ceu.hu/show.php?record=4696), last updated on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 10:06:03 +0100

Publisher linkhttp://web.ceu.hu/phil/csibra/papers/csibra&gergely_2009.pdf
Unit: 
Cognitive Development Center (CDC)