Children's understanding of the brain: From early essentialism to biological theory

This series of experiments investigated children's understanding of the brain-as-container metaphor. In four experiments, preschoolers, kindergartners, first-grade, and third-grade children heard simplified stories about animals undergoing either brain or "insides" transplants and were asked whether behavioral properties or mental contents changed as a result. Kindergarten and first-grade children recognized that the brain is needed for thinking and remembering, but younger children did not consistently claim that a transplant of either the animal's brain or all its insides would lead to changes in an animal's thoughts and memories. By the third grade, children conformed to the brain-as-container metaphor. These results suggest that the period between preschool and third grade is marked by children's struggle to accommodate new information about the brain and to reevaluate their theories of brain and behavior. Knowing that the brain is necessary for an animal to think and remember is not sufficient for children to assert that identity-relevant properties can be altered by a brain transplant. Rather, this conceptualization of the brain seems to compete with children's early essentialist assumption that something intrinsic makes an animal behave in accordance with its species.