Antonia Frederike Langenhoff

All Publications

• Disagreement drives metacognitive development. Trends in cognitive sciences Langenhoff, A. F., Thompson, B. D., Srinivasan, M., Engelmann, J. M. 2025

  Abstract

  Metacognition improves significantly over childhood, but the mechanisms underlying this development are poorly understood. We first review recent research demonstrating that disagreement prompts competent responses by young children across several metacognitive domains (confidence monitoring, information search, and source monitoring). We then propose a mechanistic model of how disagreement facilitates metacognition. We localize one main source of children's metacognitive limitations in their still-developing capacities to reason about alternative possibilities, which manifest in an overly narrow focus on one hypothesis. Disagreement increases the child's likelihood of representing alternative hypotheses, thereby promoting improved metacognitive reasoning. The broader proposal is that, through repeated experiences of disagreement, children become better at representing alternative possibilities even when reasoning on their own, leading to metacognitive development.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.014

  View details for PubMedID 40533302

• Anticipating Disagreement Enhances Source Memory in English- and Turkish-Speaking Preschool Children DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY Baer, C., Langenhoff, A., Kessafoglu, D., Mohtezebsade, W., Kidd, C., Kuentay, A. C., Engelmann, J., Koeymen, B. 2025

  Abstract

  Metacognitive abilities like source memory are useful for justifying our beliefs to others. Do they arise because of this need? Here, we test whether circumstances that require source reporting enhance source memory. We test this in circumstances in which children anticipate a disagreement and when children speak a language with obligatory linguistic evidential marking of source (Turkish). We asked 160 English- and Turkish-speaking 3- and 4-year-olds to recall how they knew something and what they knew when communicating with an agreeing or disagreeing interlocutor. Four-year-old English speakers and 3- and 4-year-old Turkish speakers correctly recalled firsthand sources (seeing the object themselves) better than secondhand sources (hearing about it from the experimenter) when they expected their interlocutor to disagree. Disagreement did not affect memory for perceptual features, suggesting its influence is specific to source memory. Together, these results highlight the importance of social and linguistic influences on metacognition, though with some important qualifications about the types of sources relevant for justifying one's beliefs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

  View details for DOI 10.1037/dev0001996

  View details for Web of Science ID 001508124300001

  View details for PubMedID 40522846

• Disagreement reduces overconfidence and prompts exploration in young children CHILD DEVELOPMENT Langenhoff, A. F., Srinivasan, M., Engelmann, J. M. 2024; 95 (5): 1616-1627

  Abstract

  Can the experience of disagreement lead young children to reason in more sophisticated ways? Across two preregistered studies, four- to six-year-old US children (N = 136, 50% female, mixed ethnicities, data collected 2020-2022) experienced either a disagreement or an agreement with a confederate about a causal mechanism after being presented with ambiguous evidence. We measured (1) children's confidence in their belief before and after the (dis)agreement, and (2) how long children searched for information about the correct answer. Disagreement, especially with an expert (Experiment 2), reduced overconfidence and prompted children to search longer for information, compared to agreement. Together, our findings suggest possibilities for interventions aimed at fostering humility and learning across the lifespan.

  View details for DOI 10.1111/cdev.14098

  View details for Web of Science ID 001198233100001

  View details for PubMedID 38588018

• Children's developing ability to adjust their beliefs reasonably in light of disagreement. Child development Langenhoff, A. F., Engelmann, J. M., Srinivasan, M. 2023; 94 (1): 44-59

  Abstract

  Two preregistered experiments (N = 218) investigated children's developing ability to respond reasonably to disagreement. U.S. children aged 4-9, and adults (50% female, mostly white) formed an initial belief, and were confronted with the belief of a disagreeing other, whose evidence was weaker, stronger than, or equal to participants' evidence. With age, participants were increasingly likely to maintain their initial belief when their own evidence was stronger, adopt the other's belief when their evidence was weaker, and suspend judgment when both had equally strong evidence. Interestingly, 4- to 6-year-olds only suspended judgment reliably when this was assessed via the search for additional information (Experiment 2). Together, our experiments suggest that the ability to respond reasonably to disagreement develops over the preschool years.

  View details for DOI 10.1111/cdev.13838

  View details for PubMedID 35924791

• Preschoolers learn new moral and conventional norms from direct experiences. Journal of experimental child psychology Langenhoff, A. F., Dahl, A., Srinivasan, M. 2022; 215: 105322

  Abstract

  By observing others, children can learn about different types of norms, including moral norms rooted in concerns for welfare and rights, and social conventions based on directives from authority figures or social consensus. Two experiments examined how preschoolers and adults constructed and applied knowledge about novel moral and conventional norms from their direct social experiences. Participants watched a video of a novel prohibited action that caused pain to a victim (moral conditions) or a sound from a box (conventional conditions). Next, they saw a transgressor puppet, who had either watched the video alongside participants or not, engage in the prohibited action. Preschoolers and adults rapidly constructed distinct moral and conventional evaluations about the novel actions. These distinctions were evident across several response modalities that have often been studied separately, including judgments, reasoning, and actions. However, children did not reliably track the puppet's knowledge of the novel norms. These studies provide experimental support for the idea that children and adults construct distinct moral and conventional norms from social experiences, which in turn guide judgments, reasoning, and behavior.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.jecp.2021.105322

  View details for PubMedID 34871790

• Predicting responsibility judgments from dispositional inferences and causal attributions. Cognitive psychology Langenhoff, A. F., Wiegmann, A., Halpern, J. Y., Tenenbaum, J. B., Gerstenberg, T. 2021; 129: 101412

  Abstract

  The question of how people hold others responsible has motivated decades of theorizing and empirical work. In this paper, we develop and test a computational model that bridges the gap between broad but qualitative framework theories, and quantitative but narrow models. In our model, responsibility judgments are the result of two cognitive processes: a dispositional inference about a person's character from their action, and a causal attribution about the person's role in bringing about the outcome. We test the model in a group setting in which political committee members vote on whether or not a policy should be passed. We assessed participants' dispositional inferences and causal attributions by asking how surprising and important a committee member's vote was. Participants' answers to these questions in Experiment 1 accurately predicted responsibility judgments in Experiment 2. In Experiments 3 and 4, we show that the model also predicts moral responsibility judgments, and that importance matters more for responsibility, while surprise matters more for judgments of wrongfulness.

  View details for DOI 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2021.101412

  View details for PubMedID 34303092