In light of the bifocal stance theory's (BST) main premise that social learners flexibly take instrumental and ritual stances, we review emerging literature on child-initiated information transmission as a crucial component of active social learning toolkit. We argue that to fully understand the developmental origins of the proposed stances, we need to consider child-led teaching which is currently overlooked in the target article's focus on imitation.

Active teaching – or pedagogical information transmission – is a complex social learning strategy enabling knowledge exchange as an essential element of human cumulative culture (Burdett, Dean, & Ronfard, Reference Burdett, Dean and Ronfard2017; Kline, Reference Kline2015; Strauss & Ziv, Reference Strauss and Ziv2012). It allows to effectively convey acquired information or practical skills to less knowledgeable others, without the need for independent learning through trial and error. The presence of teaching behaviors early in human ontogeny supports the premise that children are not merely passive recipients of knowledge, but also actively seek and further propagate knowledge to others (Bazhydai & Harris, Reference Bazhydai and Harris2021; Gweon, Reference Gweon2022). Therefore, focusing on children as active teachers in complex social learning contexts can help uncover the underlying cognitive mechanism and the emergence of the proposed stances. Can we observe the indices of instrumental and ritual stance-taking in children's own information transmission?

Developmental research suggests that children start to actively share information with others from infancy (Gweon, Reference Gweon2022; Ronfard & Harris, Reference Ronfard and Harris2018). Behavioral strategies used to propagate knowledge increase in sophistication with development (Strauss & Ziv, Reference Strauss and Ziv2012). In the first 2 years of life, children use gestures, such as pointing to the location of objects for a naïve observer, and action demonstrations; at 3 years of age, they inform others by using elaborate demonstrations (e.g., how a game is played); demonstrations are accompanied by explanations when they are 5-year-old; and at around 7, they tailor information for learners' specific needs, such as by correcting mistakes and providing individual feedback.

The crucial question arising here is whether children are selective when they propagate information to others, and if so, how early in ontogeny such selectivity emerges? While the target article evidences stance switching from infancy by focusing on imitation behavior, more direct evidence to assess this key premise of the BST would come from child-initiated teaching behaviors. The expectation that children will be selective in their teaching, rather than exhibit a “teach all” pattern, arises, first, from evidence of children's selective trust in others' testimony based on informant's epistemic or social characteristics (Tong, Wang, & Danovitch, Reference Tong, Wang and Danovitch2020). Second, already by preschool years, children hold explicit ideas about what constitutes good teaching (Sobel & Letourneau, Reference Sobel and Letourneau2016, Reference Sobel and Letourneau2018) and view providing relevant information as key to good teaching (Gweon, Reference Gweon2022). The relevance of information depends both on the nature of information itself and on the characteristics of the learners who vary in their goals, abilities, prior knowledge levels, and social affiliations, among other factors. A natural outcome of this relationship would lead to employing tailored approaches when teaching others.

Emerging findings support the notion that children flexibly make selective decisions on what kind of information to transmit, to whom and when. They consider learners' goals and abilities (Gweon & Schulz, Reference Gweon and Schulz2019), social group affiliation (Karadağ & Soley, Reference Karadağ and Soley2022; Schmidt, Rakoczy, & Tomasello, Reference Schmidt, Rakoczy and Tomasello2012), and occupations (Danovitch, Reference Danovitch2020). Further, children do not transmit all learned information indiscriminately, but variably prioritize generalizable (Baer & Friedman, Reference Baer and Friedman2018; Gelman, Ware, Manczak, & Graham, Reference Gelman, Ware, Manczak and Graham2013), cognitively opaque (Ronfard, Was, & Harris, Reference Ronfard, Was and Harris2016), simple (Bazhydai, Silverstein, Parise, & Westermann, Reference Bazhydai, Silverstein, Parise and Westermann2020), and information acquired through explicit pedagogy (Vredenburgh, Kushnir, & Casasola, Reference Vredenburgh, Kushnir and Casasola2015). Finally, children consider how much it would benefit the learner and how costly it would be for the learner to acquire information independently (Bridgers, Jara-Ettinger, & Gweon, Reference Bridgers, Jara-Ettinger and Gweon2020).

Can BST explain children's selectivity in active information transmission? Research to date, while limited, lends support to this idea. For example, instrumental stance-taking may explain the finding that children provided more comprehensive information to the learner who requested information to enable them to effectively complete an action, and also when the learner was introduced as being “silly” compared to exceptionally smart (Gweon & Schulz, Reference Gweon and Schulz2019). Ritual stance-taking might account for children's use of normative language and enforcement of conventional norms selectively with ingroup but not outgroup members (Karadağ & Soley, Reference Karadağ and Soley2022; Schmidt et al., Reference Schmidt, Rakoczy and Tomasello2012). To directly investigate whether observed selectivity in information transmission stems from flexible stance-taking, future studies should focus on systematically manipulating factors that may potentially trigger these stances during transmission – those regarding both the nature of information and the social attributes of the learner. Here, while the target article acknowledges the role of information opacity and resolvability when discussing selectivity in imitation behavior, other epistemic and social factors may provide insight into children's motivations and pave the way for more targeted research into underlying cognitive mechanisms of stance-taking across social learning strategies. Thus, future studies should focus on selectivity in information properties, such as complexity, efficiency, and relevance, in conjunction with epistemic and social attributes, such as knowledgeability or group membership of both informants and learners.

Finally, while most of research to date stems from children of preschool age and above, when representations of knowledge and explicit understanding of its transmission develop (Ziv & Frye, Reference Ziv and Frye2004), research on active information transmission in pre-mentalizing age is in its infancy (Bazhydai et al., Reference Bazhydai, Silverstein, Parise and Westermann2020; Flynn, Reference Flynn2008; Karadağ, Bazhydai, & Westermann, Reference Karadağ, Bazhydai and Westermann2022; Liszkowski, Carpenter, Striano, & Tomasello, Reference Liszkowski, Carpenter, Striano and Tomasello2006, Reference Liszkowski, Carpenter and Tomasello2008; O'Neill, Reference O'Neill1996). This limits our ability to draw generalizable conclusions with regard to the developmental trajectory of children's selectivity and stance-taking, domain specificity, or generality of the underlying cognitive mechanism and deliberateness or automaticity of these processes.

We conclude that BST has the potential to explain children's emerging selectivity in active information transmission and propose future directions for systematic investigation of instrumental and ritualistic stance-taking to further our understanding of the factors that affect the level of sophistication, diversity, and flexibility of the developing social learning toolkit.