Canonical cases of learning involve novel observations external to the mind, but learning
can also occur through mental processes such as explaining to oneself, mental simulation …

The preference for simple explanations, known as the parsimony principle, has long guided
the development of scientific theories, hypotheses, and models. Yet recent years have seen …

Are young children just random explorers who learn serendipitously? Or are even young
children guided by uncertainty‐directed sampling, seeking to explore in a systematic …

As artificial intelligence and natural language processing methods rapidly develop,
communication plays a pivotal role in every‐day interactions. In this theoretical paper, we …

This article introduces ecological active learning, a developmental framework that focuses
on children's ability to adapt and tailor their active-learning strategies to the particular …

Humans are avid explainers: We ask “why?” and derive satisfaction from a good answer. But
humans are also selective explainers: Only some observations prompt us to ask “why?” and …

In this paper, we investigate the informativeness of 4-to 6-year-old (N= 125) children's
questions using a combined qualitative and quantitative approach. Children were presented …

Question-asking is a critical aspect of human communications. Yet, little is known about the
reasons that lead people to ask questions, which questions are considered better than …

Identifying abstract relations is essential for commonsense reasoning. Research suggests
that even young children can infer relations such as “same” and “different,” but often fail to …

Curiosity motivates the search for missing information, driving learning, scientific discovery,
and innovation. Yet, identifying that there is a gap in one's knowledge is itself a critical step …