Do children preferentially learn from surprising teachers?

Abstract

Research shows that infants and children are selective when deciding who they want to learn from and what they want to learn about. For example, children prefer to learn from individuals who are knowledgeable over those who are not. They also learn better about objects that behave in impossible, surprising ways. Our lab recently found that infants preferentially learn from individuals who do surprising things (e.g., can make a toy teleport), but it is unknown if older children also preferentially learn from surprising individuals.