Children's causal inferences from indirect evidence: Backwards blocking and Bayesian reasoning in preschoolers

被引:208
作者
Sobel, DM
Tenenbaum, JB
Gopnik, A
机构
[1] Brown Univ, Dept Cognit & Linguist Sci, Providence, RI 02912 USA
[2] Univ Calif Berkeley, Dept Psychol, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
[3] MIT, Dept Brain & Cognit Sci, Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
基金
美国国家科学基金会;
关键词
causal reasoning; cognitive development;
D O I
10.1016/j.cogsci.2003.11.001
中图分类号
B84 [心理学];
学科分类号
04 ; 0402 ;
摘要
Previous research suggests that children can infer causal relations from patterns of events. However, what appear to be cases of causal inference may simply reduce to children recognizing relevant associations among events, and responding based on those associations. To examine this claim, in Experiments 1 and 2, children were introduced to a "blicket detector," a machine that lit up and played music when certain objects were placed upon it. Children observed patterns of contingency between objects and the machine's activation that required them to use indirect evidence to make causal inferences. Critically, associative models either made no predictions, or made incorrect predictions about these inferences. In general, children were able to make these inferences, but some developmental differences between 3- and 4-year-olds were found. We suggest that children's causal inferences are not based on recognizing associations, but rather that children develop a mechanism for Bayesian structure learning. Experiment 3 explicitly tests a prediction of this account. Children were asked to make an inference about ambiguous data based on the base rate of certain events occurring. Four-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds were able to make this inference. (C) 2003 Cognitive Science Society, Inc. All rights reserved.
引用
收藏
页码:303 / 333
页数:31
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