Yixin Kelly Cui

Bio: Yixin Kelly Cui is an academic researcher from Boston University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Unobservable & Conversation. The author has an hindex of 6, co-authored 8 publications receiving 87 citations. Previous affiliations of Yixin Kelly Cui include Columbia University.

Beliefs About Religious and Scientific Entities Among Parents and Children in Iran

Abstract: Previous research has shown that children and adults express more confidence in the existence of unobservable scientific (e.g., germs), as compared to religious, phenomena (e.g., the soul). We aske...

‘I Don't Know’: Children's Early Talk About Knowledge

Abstract: Children's utterances from late infancy to 3 years of age were examined to infer their conception of knowledge In Study 1, the utterances of two English-speaking children were analysed and in Study 2, the utterances of a Mandarin-speaking child were analysed – in both studies, for their use of the verb know Both studies confirmed that know and not know were used to affirm, query or deny knowledge, especially concerning an ongoing topic of conversation References to a third party were rare By implication, 2-year-olds have a conception of knowledge that underpins their exchange of information in conversation Implications for the child's developing theory of mind are discussed

Religious testimony in a secular society: Belief in unobservable entities among Chinese parents and their children.

Abstract: When learning about the existence of unobservable scientific phenomena such as germs or religious phenomena such as God, children are receptive to the testimony of other people. Research in Western cultures has shown that by 5 to 6 years of age, children-like adults-are confident about the existence of both scientific and religious phenomena. We examined the beliefs of secular and Christian children growing up in China as well as the beliefs of their parents. All participants-secular and Christian children, as well as their parents-were confident about the existence of the scientific phenomena. No such consensus emerged for religious phenomena. Whereas secular children and their parents were skeptical, Christian children and their parents were confident about the existence of the religious phenomena. Moreover, a similar pattern was found for Christian children in preschools and for Christian children with more extensive exposure to the secular state curriculum. Indeed, for religious phenomena, a positive association was found between the beliefs of Christian children and their parents, highlighting the potential influence of parental input in a predominantly secular society. Overall, the results indicate that children's religious beliefs are related to the beliefs of their parents, even when those beliefs go against the majority view. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

God, Germs, and Evolution: Belief in Unobservable Religious and Scientific Entities in the U.S. and China

Abstract: Adults in the U.S. and China were asked to make judgments about the existence of a variety of scientific and religious entities, including God, germs, and evolution. Overall, participants expressed more confidence in the existence of scientific as compared to religious entities. This differential confidence in the two domains emerged in China as well as in the U.S. Moreover, it emerged even when participants were questioned about items attracting a lower overall level of consensus. Nevertheless, the religious beliefs of individual participants moderated the degree of differentiation between scientific and religious entities. Adults reporting low levels of religiosity expressed greater belief in the existence of scientific than religious entities but adults reporting high levels of religiosity expressed equivalent levels of belief in the existence of each domain. This pattern emerged in both China and the U.S. Testimony about unobservable phenomena has a similar impact on adults' pattern of beliefs across two historically distinct cultures.

Cognitive Mechanisms Associated with Children’s Selective Teaching

Abstract: Whereas a large body of research has focused on the development of children as learners, relatively little research has focused on the development of children as teachers. Moreover, even less research has focused on the potential cognitive mechanisms associated with high-quality teaching. Here, we review evidence that children’s selective teaching is associated with at least three cognitive skills: the ability to represent mental states, the ability to infer mental states in real-time (i.e., what a pupil knows based on his or her behavior), as well as executive function skills. We note potential cultural differences in children’s teaching and highlight the need for future research.

Knowledge before belief

Abstract: Research on the capacity to understand others' minds has tended to focus on representations of beliefs, which are widely taken to be among the most central and basic theory of mind representations. Representations of knowledge, by contrast, have received comparatively little attention and have often been understood as depending on prior representations of belief. After all, how could one represent someone as knowing something if one does not even represent them as believing it? Drawing on a wide range of methods across cognitive science, we ask whether belief or knowledge is the more basic kind of representation. The evidence indicates that nonhuman primates attribute knowledge but not belief, that knowledge representations arise earlier in human development than belief representations, that the capacity to represent knowledge may remain intact in patient populations even when belief representation is disrupted, that knowledge (but not belief) attributions are likely automatic, and that explicit knowledge attributions are made more quickly than equivalent belief attributions. Critically, the theory of mind representations uncovered by these various methods exhibits a set of signature features clearly indicative of knowledge: they are not modality-specific, they are factive, they are not just true belief, and they allow for representations of egocentric ignorance. We argue that these signature features elucidate the primary function of knowledge representation: facilitating learning from others about the external world. This suggests a new way of understanding theory of mind – one that is focused on understanding others' minds in relation to the actual world, rather than independent from it.

Young children communicate their ignorance and ask questions.

Abstract: Children acquire information, especially about the culture in which they are being raised, by listening to other people. Recent evidence has shown that young children are selective learners who preferentially accept information, especially from informants who are likely to be representative of the surrounding culture. However, the extent to which children understand this process of information transmission and actively exploit it to fill gaps in their knowledge has not been systematically investigated. We review evidence that toddlers exhibit various expressive behaviors when faced with knowledge gaps. They look toward an available adult, convey ignorance via nonverbal gestures (flips/shrugs), and increasingly produce verbal acknowledgments of ignorance (“I don’t know”). They also produce comments and questions about what their interlocutors might know and adopt an interrogative stance toward them. Thus, in the second and third years, children actively seek information from interlocutors via nonverbal gestures or verbal questions and display a heightened tendency to encode and retain such sought-after information.

Tell, ask, repair: Early responding to discordant reality.

Abstract: Analyses of early social cognition have highlighted young children’s ability to coordinate with another person by attending to the same object, engaging in a common project, talking about the same topic, or sharing a make-believe world. However, a great deal of communication is predicated on the fact that people differ in what they know and understand. Indeed, many communicative acts are aimed at bridging those divergent perspectives. A knowledgeable speaker can inform his or her listener. An ignorant speaker can seek information from someone better informed. A misunderstanding between speakers can be overcome via suitable repairs. I argue that young children are not only alert to such gaps in knowledge or understanding, they are also motivated to remedy them. In pursuit of that goal, they inform, ask and repair. They work at building a shared reality rather than taking it for granted.