<Featuring image is drawn by the author>
Ghost Tour Observation
Recently, the STEMComm VIP team took part in the Atlanta Science Festival in March 2026. We presented the Ghost Tour, featuring scientists who have died because of their inventions, passion, or major founding respective to their science field. I was part of the Zenith hot air balloon tragedy team as a NPC ghost actor. If you are interested, you can look up the three main characters: engineer Joseph Crocé-Spinelli, navy officer Théodore Sivel, and Gaston Tissandier. Two of them died on their flight into the death zone (high altitude), while Gaston survived to tell the story with the price of being deaf.
Our team was assigned a big room. As guests come in from the door, they will be blocked by a big board sign of “death zone”, suggesting the death zone is ahead. The guide of the tour – Einstein, will lead them to the sign and leave them there. In the meantime, the NPC ghost will sneak in between the tour group, surprise the guests, and walk them past the sign, closer to the actual scene featuring the actors.
<Picture is taken by the author>
However, a small issue arised.There was a mix of reactions when the NPC ghost took the lead to walk over the Death Zone sign. Most people stayed still behind the sign, some hesitated to walk over, and very few actually followed the ghost.
Mixed Behaviors to Conflicting Information
Apparently, at first, the guide – Einstein, told the guests to not cross over the death zone. Then, the ghost NPC told them “follow me” as the ghost moved past the sign. Even with the actual dead scientists signaling and inviting the guests to come closer, it takes some time for them to actually move.
- First information: Do not cross the death zone – Guide Einstein said
- Second information: Follow me (crossing death zone) – NPC ghost moved
- Third information: Come closer – Dead scientists in the death zone, with obvious hand signals to come closer
There were different tour groups. The reactions are also mixed between these groups. Groups with more children tend to follow the NPC ghost at first, with young children being the first to move. In groups with more adults, the hesitation is very obvious. Even when children start walking over, they are stopped by the guardians. It takes the three actors’ effort to invite them over.
How Children Reaction to Conflicting Sources
Lili Ma and Patricia Ganea (2009) suggest that children often learn about the world through direct observation, but their knowledge can also be acquired through others’ testimony. This is validated as children often trust what they see, but they also recognize adults as trustworthy sources. Furthermore, some experiments suggest that children might accept false testimony that contradict their first-hand observation. This aligns with the classic Asch study where adults’ judgement was influenced by the social pressure and testimony of others, even though their visual perception suggests otherwise (Ma & Ganea, 2009). This explains why young children who were ready to walk over stopped along with their guardians. Parents are the more trustworthy source of information.
In addition, the three studies done by Ma and Ganea (2009) confirms that children can outweigh one source of information more than another. This aligns with another study by Baer and others (2025), suggesting that children endorse confident informants over hesitant ones when faced with conflicting testimony. The intention of one ghost to walk over might not have been as clear compared to a group of familiar adults staying in place. On a side note, in the age of the Internet, even if the confident informants previously gave false testimony, it is unlikely they will lose credibility. This is true for both children and adults as they still follow Einstein the guide after the hot air balloon room (Guerrero et al., 2020).
Interestingly, studies also show that young children can accept both sources, even if there is a contradiction (Ma & Ganea, 2009). Over time, children learn to distinguish reliable sources over misleading testimony. This is crucial to their development of selective trust and skepticism. At one point, children can conclude new understanding of the situations based on contradiction sources. This might happen around the age of 8 (Baer et al., 2025). With the second piece of information contradicting the first (and their trustworthy informants), then the last information supporting the second, the young guests were able to resolve the tricky situation and take the lead to start the scene.
Afterthought
Adults tend to apply the situation in their thought process. Given it was a Ghost Tour, they might assume to not just listen to the wandering ghosts. In addition, did Einstein’s credibility as the guide play in his favor? Einstein was the original source of information for the guests. Guests might assume the ghosts are just acting out the script. What would you do in their shoes?
References:
Baer, C., Engelmann, J. M., & Kidd, C. (2025). Children use the relative confidence of people with conflicting perspectives to form their own beliefs. Developmental Science, 28(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70027
Guerrero, S., Sebastián-Enesco, C., Morales, I., Varea, E., & Enesco, I. (2020). (in)sensitivity to accuracy? children’s and adults’ decisions about who to trust: The teacher or the internet. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.551131
Ma, L., & Ganea, P. A. (2009). Dealing with conflicting information: Young Children’s reliance on what they see versus what they are told. Developmental Science, 13(1), 151–160. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00878.x
