As soon as they can read, children trust text instructions over spoken information

As adults, we've learned that simple text-based instructions are usually trustworthy. Imagine - if a stranger tells us to turn next left for London, but we come upon a street sign that states the opposite, most of us would probably assume the stranger had made a mistake, and we'd follow the sign.

In a new paper, researchers led by Kathleen Corriveau have investigated young children's trust in instructions delivered orally, versus those originating in written text. Their finding is that as soon as children have rudimentary reading skills, they trust written text over spoken instruction.

The research involved a Y-shaped piece of apparatus: two differently coloured tubes leading to a cup beneath. One tube was always blocked. Dozens of boys and girls aged three to six had to decide in which tube to place a marble, in the hope it would reach the cup beneath, so that they'd earn a sticker.

To help them, the children received instructions from two puppets. On each trial, one puppet simply spoke their instruction (e.g. "I say blue. Choose the blue tube") whereas the other puppet opened an envelope in which was written the colour of the other tube (e.g. "This says red. Choose the red one"). The children didn't get feedback on their performance until the end of the study, so they couldn't use results to judge which puppet to trust.

Regardless of age, the children who couldn't yet read were indiscriminate in whether they chose to trust the purely oral advice, or whether to trust the puppet who read the text instruction. By contrast, the children with some reading ability showed a clear preference to trust the puppet who read from the envelope, choosing the tube they recommended over 75 per cent of the time.

Two further studies cleared up some ambiguities. For instance, it was found that young readers prefer to trust a puppet who reads the instruction from text, than oral advice from a puppet who gets their information from a whisper in the ear. In other words, the young readers weren't simply swayed by the fact the text puppet was drawing on a secondary source. Young readers also trusted instruction from written text over information conveyed in a coloured symbol. This shows they're specifically trusting of written text, not just any form of permanent, external information.

Corriveau's team said their results showed that once children learn to read, "they rapidly come to regard the written word as a particularly authoritative source of information about how to act in the world." They added that in some ways this result is difficult to explain. Young readers are exposed to a good deal of fantasy and fiction in written form, so why should they be so trusting of written instruction? Perhaps they are used to seeing adults act on the basis of written information - such as maps, menus, and recipes - but then again, pre-readers will also have had such experiences. This suggests there's something special about the process of learning to read that leads children to perceive written instruction as authoritative.

_________________________________ 

SOURCE:

http://digest.bps.org.uk/2014/06/as-soon-as-they-can-read-children-trust.html(accessed 8.10.14)

Corriveau, K., Einav, S., Robinson, E., & Harris, P. (2014). To the letter: Early readers trust print-based over oral instructions to guide their actions British Journal of Developmental Psychology DOI:10.1111/bjdp.12046

Blogging her way back to health

26 September 2014 Last updated at 23:58 GMT

By Emma TraceyBBC News, Ouch23:58 UK time, Friday, 26 September 2014

Why one chronically ill young woman swapped medication for a strict plant-based diet.

Like millions of others across the world, Natasha Lipman posts pictures of the food she eats on Instagram. But instead of cakes and fancy restaurant meals, she photographs her breakfast green juice concoctions and healthy superfood snacks.

Sixteen thousand followers watch the 25-year-old Londoner's daily progress, as she tries to maintain a diet of fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds and grains.

She initially joined Instagram to help her diet stay on track by keeping a visual food diary but says that her success on the site is down to more than intriguing food photos of smoothies and pancakes with raw chocolate. "I'm specifically sharing my day-to-day story of how I'm using food to heal, and the ups and downs of life with chronic illness."

Born with the connective tissue disorder Elhers-Danlos syndrome, Lipman's joints are prone to regularly and painfully dislocating. Last year, however, she developed two additional chronic conditions, an autonomic system issue called PoTS which stops the body from regulating itself properly and a histamine intolerance that's left her with severe allergies to foods including tomatoes.

Natasha Lipman

"I started getting dizzy, lightheaded, tight-chested, constantly nauseous," she wrote in the Huffington Post of her new symptoms. "I couldn't stand without needing to pass out, I couldn't eat half a banana without thinking I was going to die and needing days to recover, rolling around in bed in agony." She stopped being able to work or leave the house.

The medication she was prescribed didn't work, she says, and gave her "uncomfortable and idiosyncratic side effects that the doctors had never heard of." One drug made her feel like her skin was being sliced off, others caused hallucinations.

On 1 January 2014, after a bout of serious illness, Lipman had had enough of symptoms and side effects and began to look at the role that food might play in her recovery.

"Natural foods have to be very good for me," she decided after months of internet research. "Let's just cut out all of the rubbish and see what happens." She stopped eating meat, dairy, gluten, refined sugar and all processed food in favour of plant-based foods, particularly those such as ginger, which are said to have healing or pain-relieving properties.

Within months Lipman says she had improved to such an extent that she could hold down a full-time job from home, and eat complete meals without repercussions. But while a few Instagram followers try to foist eating habits like the raw food diet on to her as a definite cure, Lipman says that evangelising about specific diets is dangerous.

"I don't try anything without research and self-experimentation," says Lipman, "and would never tell anyone that there is one right way. Just because someone has read a few of my posts, doesn't mean they understand my conditions and the complicated chemical reactions that are unique to each of us."

As she became less ill, Lipman very slowly began reducing her medication and despite a few health relapses, nowadays doesn't take any drugs at all. But the blogger is keen to stress that this is a personal journey and doesn't advocate that others stop taking their meds. "Drugs help a lot of people," Lipman tells the Ouch talk show. "At a point last year, I wouldn't have been able to stand up if it weren't for certain medication. At that time, it was what I needed."

Lipman says that many people in her "real" life find her diet "quite weird-sounding", so making friends on Instagram has been one of the best things to happen to her. "Connecting with like-minded people is amazing. And it stops me boring my family with my food talk all day."

Natasha's recipes: Fennel juice bar and super food balls

The ingredients for her fennel green juice are: one large cucumber, two fennel, four stalks of celery, half a head of broccoli, a bunch of fresh coriander, an apple, and quarter of a lemon, all juiced up together with a teaspoon of wheatgrass.

For her super food balls you'll need: 1 cup pitted dates, 1/5 cup chia seeds, 1/4 cup flax seeds, 1/4 cup raw cacao nibs, 1/4 cup pink Himalayan salted pistachios, 1/4 cup mixed seeds, a pinch of raw vanilla powder, a generous pinch of pink Himalayan salt and 1-2 teaspoons of a root called maca. Whizz it all up in a food processer until the dates are broken down and you can pinch the mixture together with your fingers. Then roll the mixture into about 14 balls and store in the freezer.

Hear Natasha Lipman's story on the latest Ouch talk show. She is on Instagram as nutritiouslynatasha.

Ouch show 112: Green juice v bacon rollsYour monthly doseof razor-sharp disability radio08:27 UK time, Friday, 26 September 2014

On this month's show - the nutritiously popular blogger who swapped medication for a plant-based diet and how social media can help people with mental health difficulties.

Also, after the recent Disability Pride parade in Belfast, we ask can you be "proud" of being disabled? And a look at what's in Ouch's diary for the coming month.

SOURCE:

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs/ouch/(accessed 29.9.14)