From an early age, children are highly motivated to learn from others how ‘we’ do things in our cultural communities, and in a variety of domains (Csibra & Gergely, 2009; Schmidt & Tomasello, 2012; Tomasello, 2016). The human unique propensity for rapid acquisition of knowledge from others allows us to develop and maintain a vast array of belief systems, arbitrary conventions, cultural tools and complex institutions (Boyd et al., 2011; Gergely & Csibra, 2006; Legare, 2019; Schmidt & Rakoczy, 2019; Tomasello, 1996). However, when children observe others' behaviours, some actions they observe may be erroneous, purposefully deceptive or, in some cases, simply irrelevant. Think of human-made artefacts whose causal structure and intended function(s) are often opaque to naïve learners (Hernik & Csibra, 2009; Schmidt & Rakoczy, 2023). Chopsticks might be designed for eating, but they also have other potential functions: you can scratch your back with them, you can use them to tidy up your hair, you can use them to stir food or pick up out-of-reach objects. Observing all these different functions of the very same object, how do children decide which of these is the proper and culturally right way to use the artefact?

According to current theories of socio-cultural learning, human children have a propensity to engage in shared and collective forms (‘we-mode’) of cognition that allow for acquiring and constructing cultural-normative knowledge (Schmidt & Rakoczy, 2018, 2019; Tomasello, 2019). Children are also attuned to ostensive communicative signals (e.g., eye contact and infant-directed speech) displayed by others that indicate their pedagogical intention (Natural Pedagogy Theory, Csibra & Gergely, 2009, Csibra & Gergely, 2011). Ostensive communicative signals instantiate a presumption of relevance (Sperber & Wilson, 1986) and epistemic trust in their addressees (Gergely et al., 2007). Hence recognising the teaching intention of others helps young children to selectively attend to and acquire knowledge from trustworthy resources in a noisy social learning environment. Computational modelling work on teaching further indicates that a naïve learner expects a teacher to purposefully generate samples to increase their belief in the hypothesis that is to be learned: there is a basic epistemic expectation in naïve learners that a teacher would sample useful data for them (Bonawitz et al., 2011; Buchsbaum et al., 2011; Shafto & Goodman, 2008).

Whilst to date, there are several lines of empirical evidence showing that children indeed construe teachers as selectively demonstrating evidence to promote efficient and rapid information gain that allows for inductive inferences (e.g., Butler & Markman, 2012, 2014), previous research also uncovered that teaching contexts restrict children's exploratory behaviours (Bonawitz et al., 2011; Gweon et al., 2014). Yet an important question remains: Do children exercise context-sensitive epistemic vigilance against teachers taking into account their linguistic group membership and thus the social relevance of the demonstration? When it comes to the demonstration of an artefact function (i.e., a piece of normative cultural knowledge; Casler et al., 2009; Schmidt & Rakoczy, 2018), we argue that children will use explicit (linguistic) cues about the teacher's social group membership to rapidly acquire relevant cultural knowledge and thus restrict their exploratory behaviour on the artefact upon viewing a teacher from the same social group as them demonstrating the artefact function. In other words, we predict that if children observe a demonstrator speaking in their own native language showing a particular function on a novel artefact with multiple potential affordances, then they would be more likely to prioritise the demonstrated function in their own reenactment. On the other hand, when they see the same function demonstration of the artefact performed by a foreign language speaker they would be more likely to explore the artefact to realise other potential functions as they would not interpret the demonstration as indicating conventional, normative use of the object relevant to them.

Here, we focus on linguistic group membership as language-based social categories reliably mark the boundaries of different social communities, unlike race or gender (Baker, 2001; Giles & Billings, 2004; Henrich & Henrich, 2007; Moya & Henrich, 2016; Pietraszewski & Schwartz, 2014a; Pietraszewski & Schwartz, 2014b). Even if infants show sensitivity to the dimension of race or gender from a very young age as reflected by their different visual attention to these social category distinctions (Bar-Haim et al., 2006; Quinn et al., 2002), we argue that linguistic group membership plays a special role in children's learning from others. Before their first birthday, infants not only pay more attention to individuals who speak their own language but also critically they pay more attention to novel stimuli when these are introduced by their own language speakers than by foreign language speakers (Marno et al., 2016; Soley & Sebastián-Gallés, 2015). They also selectively prefer the objects or food items offered by their native speakers to those offered by foreign language speakers (Kinzler et al., 2007; Shutts et al., 2009). At 11 months, infants also represent an informant who speaks the same language as they do as someone who would provide them with relevant information as indicated by the greater anticipatory theta activity upon viewing a native language speaker versus a foreign language speaker (Begus et al., 2016). In toddlerhood, they show propensity to selectively imitate sub-efficient instrumental actions from demonstrators who speak the same language as them (Altınok et al., 2022; Buttelmann et al., 2013; Howard et al., 2015) and as they grow older, they keep these sub-efficient actions in their repertoire despite viewing efficient action alternatives in achieving the same goal as shown by a linguistic outgroup demonstrator (Altınok et al., 2020).

Critically, empirical evidence also indicates that the native language survives over race: when racial group membership of the agents 5-year-olds viewed was pitted against their accent, children privileged native accent over same-race (Kinzler & Dautel, 2012, see similar findings with infants Kinzler & Spelke, 2011). All these findings corroborate the evidence showing the privileged role linguistic group membership has in guiding young children's learning from others. After all, shared-language cue signals the potential of a common cultural background between two parties—between the teacher and the naïve learner, and also the teacher's capacity to transmit culturally relevant information. Observing a teacher who speaks the same language as themselves, the naïve learners could infer that they are not only similar in the language they speak but also in several other culturally significant domains that they have yet no expertise in (see also Oláh et al., 2019; Soley & Aldan, 2020) In this vein, shared language¹ can reliably guide naïve learners to the informants who could be the optimal teachers from whom they can learn culturally relevant knowledge.

This is directly demonstrated by studies on how children learn artefact functions—given that artefacts, human-made tools surrounding our daily lives, are fundamental to our material cultural knowledge. Upon being demonstrated the use of a novel artefact, children represent the demonstrated function as the target artefact's enduring function and avoid using the artefact for any other function (Casler & Kelemen, 2005). Children also appreciate that the proper function of artefacts—that is, how to use a human-made object—is not an idiosyncratic affair, but generalizable and normatively prescribed (Rakoczy & Schmidt, 2013; Schmidt & Tomasello, 2012). Upon being taught what the novel artefact is for, they protest (as a third-party observer) against an agent who uses that target artefact differently (Casler et al., 2009). Young children also show selective protest against ingroup rather than outgroup individuals in the context of violations of conventional norms on how to act on human-made artefacts (Schmidt et al., 2012). They can reason that artefacts ought to be used in conventionally agreed-upon ways despite appearing to afford other functions, and there is a proper way in which ‘we’ ought to use them (Chaigneau et al., 2016 on normative accounts of artefact functions; see also Schmidt & Rakoczy, 2019, 2023).

Previous research has shown that even toddlers understand that the conventional use of familiar objects is part of and linked to the broader shared knowledge. Two-year-olds expect the agent to be the source of a foreign language if they have previously seen the agent using an artefact unconventionally, but not if the agent has used it conventionally (Oláh et al., 2014). Toddlers also expect those who speak their language to use the same artefact for the same function, suggesting that they understand the social consensus behind the normative use of novel artefacts (Pető et al., 2021). They form representations of artefacts and their functions in inflexible ways when these are demonstrated by their native language speakers, as revealed by their persistent endorsement of tools that are presented by members of their own language group, even though the tool does not effectively achieve the intended purpose (Oláh et al., 2016). Around the age of 5, children also evaluate a novel tool as serving only one function but only when this tool use demonstration is delivered by their linguistic group member, a person who speaks the same language as they do, leading enduring mutually exclusive tool-function mappings (Pető et al., 2018).

Considering the accumulating evidence on the role of native language influencing the way children map the functions to novel artefacts, and how artefact use is rooted in cultural learning as the way they are used is shaped by conventional agreement, here we are using the classic paradigm of Bonawitz et al. (2011) to investigate how children limit their exploratory behaviour on a novel artefact following a demonstration by linguistic ingroup versus outgroup. The study has two aims. Our first aim is to conceptually replicate the original study of Bonawitz et al. (2011) in a different cultural setting, in [ANONYMIZED] sample of children. Secondly, we aim to extend the interpretation of the original findings by arguing that children's spontaneous restriction of their exploration of novel artefacts may be a consequence of their strong motivation to rapidly acquire relevant cultural knowledge from their linguistic ingroups.

Different lines of research suggest that young children have a tendency to over-attribute functions and norms of proper use to novel artefacts, even if there are alternative and equally feasible ways of how to use the artefact (promiscuous teleology and normativity; Casler & Kelemen, Casler & Kelemen, 2005; Kelemen, Kelemen, 1999, 2004; Schmidt et al., Schmidt et al., 2011, Schmidt et al., 2016). Considering this, we propose using an unfamiliar apparatus with multiple functions as it was in the original study of Bonawitz et al. (2011). We would argue that such apparatus mimics everyday artefacts that have one intended function but multiple possible uses (e.g., a fork is to eat with, but it can be used to brush one's hair or to pull something out from underneath the drawer) and thus it can be a suitable tool for investigating cultural learning. Thus, as in Bonawitz and her colleagues' study, children will view a novel artefact with four different functions. In the same-language demonstration, they will observe a female adult speaking the same language as themselves demonstrating one function of the artefact (henceforth ‘linguistic ingroup’ condition). In the foreign-language demonstration, they will observe the same function demonstration by another female adult who speaks a different language than them (‘linguistic outgroup’ condition). Importantly, the demonstrations will be nonverbal but incorporate ostensive signals to reveal the demonstrators' teaching intention. When the demonstration phase is done, children will be given the artefact, and we will measure children's exploratory behaviours on it. We predict that children will be fixating more on the demonstrated function of the artefact, thus limiting their exploratory behaviour and discovery when the demonstration is delivered by their linguistic ingroup teacher. We expect children to widely explore the artefact and also discover its non-demonstrated functions when the demonstration is delivered by a linguistic outgroup teacher.

从很小的时候起，孩子们就非常积极地向他人学习“我们”如何在我们的文化社区和各个领域做事（Csibra & Gergely，  2009；Schmidt & Tomasello，  2012；Tomasello，  2016）。人类从他人那里快速获取知识的独特倾向使我们能够发展和维护大量的信仰体系、任意惯例、文化工具和复杂的机构（Boyd 等人，  2011 年；Gergely 和 Csibra，  2006 年；Legare，  2019 年；施密特和拉科奇，  2019；托马塞洛，  1996）。然而，当孩子观察他人的行为时，他们观察到的一些行为可能是错误的、故意欺骗的，或者在某些情况下根本不相关。想象一下人造制品，其因果结构和预期功能对于天真的学习者来说通常是不透明的（Hernik & Csibra，  2009；Schmidt & Rakoczy，  2023）。筷子可能是为吃饭而设计的，但它们也有其他潜在的功能：你可以用它们挠背，你可以用它们整理你的头发，你可以用它们搅拌食物或拿起够不到的物体。观察同一个物体的所有这些不同功能，孩子们如何决定哪一个是使用该手工艺品的正确且文化上正确的方式？

根据当前的社会文化学习理论，人类儿童倾向于参与共享和集体的认知形式（“我们模式”），从而获取和构建文化规范知识（Schmidt＆Rakoczy  ，2018，2019；托马塞洛，  2019）。儿童也会适应其他人表现出的明示交流信号（例如眼神交流和针对婴儿的讲话），这些信号表明了他们的教学意图（自然教育理论，Csibra＆Gergely，  2009，Csibra＆Gergely，  2011）。明示交际信号实例化了对相关性的假设（Sperber & Wilson，  1986）和对收件人的认知信任（Gergely et al.,  2007）。因此，认识到他人的教学意图有助于幼儿在嘈杂的社会学习环境中选择性地关注并从可信赖的资源中获取知识。教学计算建模工作进一步表明，幼稚学习者期望老师有目的地生成样本，以增强他们对要学习的假设的信念：幼稚学习者有一个基本的认知期望，即老师会为他们采样有用的数据（ Bonawitz 等人，  2011 年；Buchsbaum 等人，  2011 年；Shafto 和 Goodman，  2008 年）。

虽然迄今为止，有几条经验证据表明，孩子们确实将教师视为有选择地展示证据，以促进有效和快速的信息获取，从而允许归纳推理（例如，Butler & Markman，  2012，2014 ），先前的研究还发现教学环境限制了儿童的探索行为（Bonawitz 等，  2011；Gweon 等，  2014）。然而，一个重要的问题仍然存在：考虑到他们的语言群体成员资格以及示威活动的社会相关性，儿童是否会对教师表现出情境敏感的认知警惕？当涉及到人工制品功能（即一段规范文化知识；Casler et al.,  2009；Schmidt & Rakoczy,  2018）的演示时，我们认为孩子们会使用关于教师社会群体的明确（语言）线索会员在观看与他们来自同一社会群体的老师演示人工制品功能时，可以快速获取相关文化知识，从而限制他们对人工制品的探索行为。换句话说，我们预测，如果孩子们观察到演示者用自己的母语说话，展示了具有多种潜在功能的新颖手工艺品的特定功能，那么他们更有可能在自己的重演中优先考虑所演示的功能。另一方面，当他们看到外语使用者对人工制品的相同功能演示时，他们更有可能探索该人工制品以实现其他潜在功能，因为他们不会将演示解释为表明该人工制品的常规、规范使用。与他们相关的对象。

在这里，我们关注语言群体成员资格，因为基于语言的社会类别可靠地标记了不同社会社区的界限，与种族或性别不同（Baker，  2001；Giles & Billings，  2004；Henrich & Henrich，  2007；Moya & Henrich，  2016； Pietraszewski 和施瓦茨，  2014a；Pietraszewski 和施瓦茨，  2014b）。即使婴儿从很小的时候就表现出对种族或性别维度的敏感性，这反映在他们对这些社会类别区别的不同视觉关注上（Bar-Haim 等，  2006；Quinn 等，  2002），我们认为语言群体成员资格在儿童向他人学习方面发挥着特殊作用。在一岁生日之前，婴儿不仅会更多地关注说自己语言的人，而且批判性地，当这些刺激由母语使用者引入时，他们比外语使用者更关注新刺激（Marno et al.,  2016；索利和塞巴斯蒂安-加勒斯，  2015）。他们还选择性地喜欢母语人士提供的物品或食物，而不是外语人士提供的物品或食物（Kinzler 等，  2007；Shutts 等，  2009）。在 11 个月大时，婴儿也代表了一个与他们讲相同语言的信息提供者，他们会向他们提供相关信息，这可以通过观看母语使用者与外语使用者时更大的预期 theta 活动来表明（Begus 等人，2017）。 ，  2016）。在幼儿时期，他们表现出选择性地模仿与他们讲相同语言的示威者的低效工具性动作的倾向（Altınok et al.,  2022 ; Buttelmann et al.,  2013 ; Howard et al.,  2015），并且随着年龄的增长，尽管他们看到了有效的行动替代方案来实现与语言外群体演示者所展示的相同目标，但他们仍然保留了这些低效率的行动（Altınok et al.,  2020）。

至关重要的是，经验证据还表明，母语比种族更重要：当 5 岁孩子所看到的代理人的种族群体成员资格与他们的口音相比较时，孩子们会优先考虑母语而不是同种族的口音（Kinzler & Dautel，  2012，参见类似的内容）。对婴儿的研究结果 Kinzler & Spelke,  2011）。所有这些发现都证实了以下证据：语言群体成员身份在指导幼儿向他人学习方面具有特殊作用。毕竟，共享语言提示标志着双方（教师和幼稚学习者）之间潜在的共同文化背景，以及教师传递文化相关信息的能力。观察一位与自己讲相同语言的老师，天真的学习者可以推断出他们不仅在所讲的语言上相似，而且在他们尚不具备专业知识的其他几个具有文化意义的领域也相似（另见 Oláh 等人，  2019；Soley & Aldan，  2020）在这种情况下，共享语言¹可以可靠地引导幼稚的学习者找到信息提供者，而信息提供者可能是他们可以学习文化相关知识的最佳教师。

关于儿童如何学习人工制品功能的研究直接证明了这一点——考虑到人工制品和我们日常生活周围的人造工具是我们物质文化知识的基础。在被演示使用新颖的人工制品后，儿童将所演示的功能表示为目标人工制品的持久功能，并避免将该人工制品用于任何其他功能（Casler＆Kelemen，  2005）。孩子们还认识到，人工制品的正确功能——即如何使用人造物品——并不是一件特殊的事情，而是普遍化和规范化的规定（Rakoczy & Schmidt，  2013；Schmidt & Tomasello，  2012）。在被告知新颖的人工制品的用途后，他们（作为第三方观察者）抗议以不同方式使用该目标人工制品的特工（Casler et al.,  2009）。在违反如何对人造物品采取行动的传统规范的情况下，幼儿也会对内群体而不是外群体个体表现出选择性抗议（Schmidt et al.,  2012）。他们可以推断，尽管人工制品似乎提供了其他功能，但应该以传统商定的方式使用它们，并且“我们”应该以适当的方式使用它们（Chaigneau 等人，2016 年关于 人工制品功能的规范性说明） ；另请参见 Schmidt 和 Rakoczy  ，2019、2023）。

先前的研究表明，即使是幼儿也明白，熟悉物体的常规使用是更广泛的共享知识的一部分并与之相关。两岁的孩子如果之前看到智能体非常规地使用一件物品，那么他们就会期望该智能体成为外语的来源，但如果智能体以常规方式使用它，则他们不会期望该智能体成为外语的来源（Oláh et al.,  2014）。幼儿还期望那些说自己语言的人使用相同的人工制品来实现相同的功能，这表明他们理解规范使用新奇人工制品背后的社会共识（Pető et al.,  2021）。当他们的母语人士展示这些物品及其功能时，他们以不灵活的方式形成对这些物品及其功能的表示，正如他们对自己语言组成员提供的工具的持续认可所揭示的那样，即使该工具没有有效地实现预期目标目的（Oláh 等，  2016）。在 5 岁左右，孩子们也会评价一种新奇的工具只提供一种功能，但前提是该工具使用演示是由他们的语言小组成员（与他们说同一种语言的人）进行的，从而导致持久的相互排斥的工具功能映射（Pető 等人，  2018）。

考虑到越来越多的证据表明母语影响儿童将功能映射到新奇物品的方式，以及物品的使用如何植根于文化学习，因为它们的使用方式是由传统协议塑造的，在这里我们使用经典的范式博纳维茨等人。 ( 2011 ) 调查儿童如何在语言内群体与外群体的演示后限制他们对新奇物品的探索行为。该研究有两个目的。我们的首要目标是在概念上复制 Bonawitz 等人的原始研究。 （2011）在不同的文化环境中，在[匿名]儿童样本中。其次，我们的目的是扩展对原始发现的解释，认为儿童自发限制对新奇文物的探索可能是他们从语言群体中快速获取相关文化知识的强烈动机的结果。

不同的研究表明，幼儿倾向于过度地将功能和正确使用的规范归因于新奇的人工制品，即使有其他且同样可行的方式来使用人工制品（混杂的目的论和规范性；Casler＆Kelemen， Casler & Kelemen，  2005 ；Kelemen 、 Kelemen，  1999、2004；Schmidt 等人、Schmidt 等人，  2011、Schmidt 等人，  2016 ）。考虑到这一点，我们建议使用一种不熟悉的具有多种功能的装置，就像 Bonawitz 等人最初的研究一样。 （2011）。我们认为，这种装置模仿了具有一种预期功能但具有多种可能用途的日常制品（例如，叉子是用来吃饭的，但它可以用来刷头发或从抽屉下面拉出东西），因此它可以成为研究文化学习的合适工具。因此，正如博纳维茨和她同事的研究一样，孩子们将看到一种具有四种不同功能的新颖的人工制品。在同语言演示中，他们将观察到一名女性成年人与自己使用相同的语言，展示该人工制品的一种功能（下文称为“语言内群体”条件）。在外语演示中，他们将观察另一位使用与他们不同语言的女性成年人进行相同的功能演示（“语言外群”条件）。重要的是，演示将是非语言的，但包含明示信号以揭示演示者的教学意图。演示阶段完成后，我们将向孩子们提供人工制品，我们将测量孩子们对其的探索行为。我们预测，当语言内组老师进行演示时，孩子们将更多地关注人工制品所展示的功能，从而限制了他们的探索行为和发现。我们希望孩子们能够广泛探索该人工制品，并在语言外群体教师进行演示时发现其未演示的功能。