Disagreement mattered: English and Turkish-speaking kids both were more likely to correctly remember they saw the contents when facing disagreement rather than agreement.
This wasn't just about heightened attention overall: they didn't remember the perceptual features of the gift box any better.

Preschoolers helped 'pack gifts' and had to remember the contents. Sometimes a partner disagreed with them about what was inside.
We asked kids to tell us how they learned the contents (by seeing themselves or by hearing from an adult) to justify their answer.

New paper out now asks:
Why do we bother remembering *how* we learned something?
With @antoniafl.bsky.social, Dilara Keşşafoğlu, Winuss Mohtezebsade, @celestekidd.bsky.social, Aylin Küntay, @janengelmann.bsky.social, and Bahar Köymen
dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0...

If one witness was more confident, kids trusted that witness.
But if they were both equally confident, kids 8+ tended to pick the middle option, even though no one had actually endorsed that!

Kids 5-12 years old played detective and solved a monster crime 🔍
Two witnesses gave different descriptions of the suspect, but also gave their confidence (high or low).
We then gave kids a lineup that differed veeeery slightly (this one is the # of spots), always with an option in the middle.

So do these disfluencies 'mean' anything? Yes! They were related to children's accuracy and confidence about that answer.
But if you look carefully, they only predicted confidence when kids were accurate - otherwise disfluencies were more aligned with accuracy than confidence. 4/5

But we also recorded everything they said while they were answering (a Herculean effort by Eloise and a huge team of amazing RAs!). We tracked the verbal disfluencies they used: things like 'um', 'I think' and pauses before they started to answer.
They used a lot! 3/5

We asked children to answer easy and hard questions about numbers and animal facts, and select answers they were confident in.
We replicated the pattern where kids were more accurate on items they were confident in. 2/5

It's new job day! 👩‍🏫
You can now find me at Algoma University in Brampton as an Assistant Professor of Psychology.