@article {1194, title = {Children{\textquoteright}s understanding of the costs and rewards underlying rational action}, journal = {Cognition}, volume = {140}, year = {2015}, month = {07/2015}, pages = {14{\textendash}23}, abstract = {
Humans explain and predict other agents{\textquoteright} behavior using mental state concepts, such as beliefs and desires. Computational and developmental evidence suggest that such inferences are enabled by a principle of rational action: the expectation that agents act efficiently, within situational constraints, to achieve their goals. Here we propose that the expectation of rational action is instantiated by a na{\"\i}ve utility calculus sensitive to both agent-constant and agent-specific aspects of costs and rewards associated with actions. In four experiments, we show that, given an agent{\textquoteright}s choices, children (range: 5-6 year olds; N=96) can infer unobservable aspects of costs (differences in agents{\textquoteright} competence) from information about subjective differences in rewards (differences in agents{\textquoteright} preferences) and vice versa. Moreover, children can design informative experiments on both objects and agents to infer unobservable constraints on agents{\textquoteright} actions.
}, doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2015.03.006}, url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027715000566}, author = {Julian Jara-Ettinger and Hyowon Gweon and Joshua B. Tenenbaum and Laura Schulz} }