Children's ability to make transitive inferences: The importance of premise integration and structural complexity

Four experiments investigated 4- to 6-year-olds' transitive inferences. In Experiments 1-3, there was a nonmapping condition in which inferences were made either about stacked blocks, or about sticks ordered left to right. In the mapping condition, inferences were made by mapping either from blocks to sticks, or the reverse. In Experiments 2-4, relational complexity was manipulated by requiring either 1 or 2 premise relations to be processed in a single decision. Mapping was harder than nonmapping, but relational complexity was the main source of variance, with 2 relations being harder in both mapping and nonmapping conditions. The percentage of participants integrating 2 relations in a single decision was estimated at 20% at age 4, 53% at age 5 and 57% at age 6, suggesting gradual development of transitive inference ability. Results suggest that relational complexity has a strong effect on transitive inference in 4- to 6-year-old children.