3.5~5.5岁儿童在知觉相似与概念冲突情形下的归纳推理

了探讨儿童是基于知觉相似的还是基于概念的进行归纳推理的,利用儿童较为熟悉的材料,设计了一种知觉相似与概念冲突的情形,并在4种不同的信息提示条件下,测试了总共275名3.5岁、4.5岁和5.5岁儿童的归纳推理。实验结果显示,在预备实验中,3.5岁的儿童已经能够排除无关刺激要么基于知觉相似要么基于概念进行归纳推理,但二者没有显著差异;在正式实验中,在4种任务条件下,3.5岁的儿童的情况基本与预备实验相同,而4.5岁和5.5岁的儿童则更倾向于基于概念进行归纳推理,这表明儿童的归纳推理可能的确经历了从依据知觉相似到依据概念关系的转变,但发生转变的年龄应该不是在7~8岁,而是在4岁之前     

不熟悉材料伴随熟悉类别标签时儿童的归纳推理

对呈现在儿童面前的不熟悉的材料用儿童熟悉的、各不相同的类别标签命名之后,使儿童面临知觉相似和类别冲突的情形下,研究了儿童的归纳推理及其发展。研究结果显示,在此情形下,5岁儿童的归纳推理主要是基于知觉相似的,7岁儿童基于知觉相似和基于类别的归纳推理之间差异不显著,11岁儿童则主要基于类别进行归纳推理。     

儿童早期分类与基于类别的归纳的一致性

传统的观点认为,儿童早期的分类是基于类别的归纳的基础。根据这种观点,儿童早期的分类与基于类别的归纳是一致的。该研究在不同材料条件下测试了4岁儿童面临知觉相似和概念冲突时的自由分类与归纳推理的一致性。研究结果显示,在照片条件下,4岁儿童的自由分类和基于类别的归纳是不一致的,儿童的分类主要是基于知觉相似的,而基于类别的归纳主要是基于概念的;在线条画条件下,儿童的分类与基于类别的归纳是一致的,都主要是基于知觉相似的。这些结果显示,儿童早期的分类和基于类别的关系是复杂的。     

学前儿童基于物体重量归纳推理的发展:中美跨文化比较

关于物体重量认知的研究是探讨儿童整个认知发展的重要途径之一。本文通过两个实验考察了美国和中国儿童利用语言标签基于重量进行归纳推理的发展特点及跨文化一致性。实验人员利用语言标签提示三个外部知觉特征完全相似物体中的一个物体,随后要求儿童从剩余两个物体中选择一个他们认为和目标物体共享语言标签的物体。研究考察儿童是否能够基于物体的内在属性重量进行类别判断。结果显示:(1) 4岁和5岁儿童以重量进行归纳推理显著高于3岁儿童, 4岁和5岁儿童之间的差异不显著;(2)美国和中国4岁和5岁儿童的表现均显著高于随机水平, 3岁儿童与随机水平没有显著差异;(3)美国2岁儿童的表现边缘低于随机水平, 6岁儿童显著高于随机水平。总之,儿童利用语言标签进行基于重量的归纳推理随年龄增长而发展;美国和中国儿童在发展特点及年龄转折上具有跨文化一致性, 4岁儿童具备了利用语言标签进行基于物体内在属性归纳推理的能力。     

知觉和概念信息对3岁儿童归纳推理的影响

采用经典的三角归纳范式(Gelman & Markman,1986)研究了3岁儿童的归纳推理及其影响因素。采用龙长权、路晓英、李红和范籍丹(2008)的研究中相同的实验材料和程序,测试了3岁儿童的归纳,结果表明3岁儿童基于知觉相似和基于概念类别之间的差异不显著(实验一)。增加了与靶刺激在知觉上不相似且不属于同一类别的分心刺激之后,3岁儿童能够忽略分心刺激,表明3岁儿童不是在随机猜测(实验二)。分类实验表明3岁儿童能够根据概念关系对实验材料中的项目进行分类,表明3岁儿童具有关于实验项目的概念知识(实验三)。提高概念比较刺激与靶刺激的知觉相似程度,降低知觉比较刺激和概念比较刺激与靶刺激在知觉相似上的冲突程度之后,3岁儿童基于知觉相似和基于概念类别选择之间的差异仍不显著,表明抑制控制不是导致儿童在实验一中表现出基于知觉相似和基于概念类别之间差异不显著的原因(实验四)。降低概念比较刺激与靶刺激之间的类别等级结构,使概念比较刺激与靶刺激属于相同的基本水平类别时,3岁儿童能够主要基于概念类别进行归纳(实验五)。增加经典三角测试的前提的数量,3岁儿童也能主要基于概念类别进行归纳(实验六)。这些研究表明,3岁儿童在一定条件下能够基于概念类别进行归纳,多个因素能够影响3岁儿童在三角测试中的表现。     

分心抑制和关系整合对学前儿童类比推理的影响

为探究分心抑制和关系整合对学前儿童类比推理的影响,实验一先初步探究分心抑制和关系整合对25名3~4岁和26名5~6岁儿童完成含有知觉分心的类比情景任务的影响。其次,揭示知觉分心与关系整合在类比推理中的具体作用模式。实验二先初步探究分心抑制和关系整合对30名3~4岁和28名5~6岁儿童完成含有语义分心的类比情景任务的影响。其次,揭示语义分心与关系整合在类比推理中的具体作用模式。结果表明,抑制控制能显著预测儿童完成各种类型类比推理成绩,工作记忆能显著预测儿童完成含有语义分心的类比推理成绩而不能显著预测含有知觉分心的类比推理成绩。儿童完成类比情景中的分心抑制是在关系整合中完成的,当类比情景中的关系整合没有超过儿童的工作记忆容量时,知觉或语义分心才能造成对儿童类比推理的影响。     

主题与类属关系的距离对分类和属性推理过程的影响：来自ERP的证据

不同关系类型对归纳推理具有重要的影响,然而主题关系（如,熊猫vs.竹子）与类属关系（如,熊猫vs.羚羊）在归纳推理中的神经机制仍然不清楚。本研究采用事件相关电位（ERP）技术,通过分开呈现属性归纳推理任务中的结论类别和结论属性,探讨两种关系类型及其距离在分类过程和属性推理过程中的ERP特征。结果发现：（1）结论类别呈现阶段,N400（370～500 ms）与LNC（the late negative component）（570～700 ms）时间窗口上,无论是主题关系还是类属关系,远距离比近距离均诱发了更大的负波;前者表明N400与语义整合密切相关,后者说明LNC与语义类别信息违背和假设形成有关。（2）结论属性呈现阶段,主题关系比类属关系诱发了更大的N1;同时,近距离比远距离诱发了更大的N1,反映了类别属性特征的知觉和自动化加工。结果表明：语义类别属性归纳存在距离效应,并且语义关系在属性推理过程中具有不同的加工方式。     

物体颜色与质地相似度对幼儿归纳推理的影响

设计了3个实验任务,探讨物体颜色相似度与质地相似度对140名4~6岁幼儿和40名成年人的归纳推理的影响。结果发现,在任务1中,当靶物体质地保持不变时,幼儿和成年人在归纳推理中倾向于选择与靶物体在颜色上更相似的物体;在任务2中,当靶物体颜色不变时,幼儿和成年人倾向于选择与靶物体在质地上更相似的物体;在任务3中,当测试物体在颜色相似度和质地相似度上发生相反变化时,4岁幼儿显著地依赖于质地相似度进行归纳,颜色相似度在5~6岁时的重要性明显提高,但仍略低于质地相似性,差异不显著,这表明颜色相似度和质地相似度在幼儿的归纳推理中具有不同程度的重要性。对成年人而言,颜色相似度虽然看起来比质地相似度相对更重要性,但差异不显著。     

相似和相同语言标签对幼儿归纳推理的影响

为进一步检验相似语言标签的效应,采用经典的三角属性归纳范式,通过两个实验研究了"相似/相同"的真实语言标签对4岁幼儿归纳推理的影响.在实验一中,三角范式中的三个刺激物属于同一类别,在实验二中,三个刺激物属于两种不同的类别.每个实验均有三种条件:在控制条件中,实验者用"这个"指代每个客体;在相似语言标签条件中,靶刺激与知觉不相似的比较刺激具有相同的、且暗示了类别成员关系的词素(例如,翠鸟—飞机—鸵鸟);在相同语言标签条件中,靶刺激和知觉不相似的比较刺激共享相同的语言标签(例如,鸟—飞机—鸟).结果一致显示,与控制条件相比,幼儿在相似语言标签条件下表现出了更多的基于概念的归纳,表明在真实语言标签条件下也存在相似语言标签效应.同时,研究结果也显示,幼儿在相似和相同语言标签条件下的归纳没有显著差异,说明语言标签在幼儿归纳中更可能传递了概念信息,从而挑战了Sloutsky等的理论.     

从知觉分心任务看儿童类比推理能力的发展

采用四类图片类比映射任务,考察了知觉分心对90名4岁、5岁、6岁儿童类比推理能力发展的影响,并进一步阐释影响儿童类比推理能力发展的可能机制。四类图片类比映射任务分别为一种关系无分心任务、一种关系有分心任务、两种关系无分心任务和两种关系有分心任务。结果表明：（1）在具备相应知识经验的前提下,知觉分心对儿童类比推理成绩有显著影响,儿童在无分心任务中的表现明显好于知觉分心任务的表现。在无分心条件下,4岁儿童已经开始能够选择关系匹配来正确完成类比推理。错误分析发现知觉分心任务中儿童所犯错误主要是分心错误,而且分心错误随年龄增长呈下降趋势。这表明对知觉分心的抑制控制可能是儿童类比推理能力发展的一个重要影响因素。（2）随着年龄增长,儿童类比推理能力逐渐提高。总体表现为6岁组的成绩显著优于4岁、5岁组的成绩,而4岁组的成绩与5岁组的成绩没有显著差异。5岁可能是儿童能够抑制知觉分心进行类比推理的快速发展期     

Developmental changes in children's inductive inferences for biological concepts: implications for the development of essentialist beliefs

We examined developmental changes in children's inductive inferences about biological concepts as a function of knowledge of properties and concepts. Specifically, 4‐ to 5‐year‐olds and 9‐ to 10‐year‐olds were taught either familiar or unfamiliar internal, external, or functional properties about known and unknown target animals. Children were asked to infer whether each of four probes, varying in categorical and perceptual similarity to the target, also shared that property. Overall, children made more inferences for known concepts and familiar properties. Older children were more likely to use categorical than perceptual information when making inferences about internal and functional properties of known concepts; however, younger children, in general, made no distinction for property type, and they weighted categorical and perceptual information similarly. Both age groups utilized appearance when making inferences about external properties. Results are discussed in terms of developmental changes in children's appreciation of essentialism. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Food rejection and the development of food category-based induction in 2–6 years old children

We studied children’s inductive inferences within the domain of food categories. There has so far been little research on inductive reasoning about food among children, despite the theoretical and practical importance of knowing what knowledge children bring to the table and how they use it. We tested the hypotheses that children’s food category-based induction performances and their food rejection are negatively correlated, and that these performances are influenced by the colour typicality of the food items. We recruited 126 children aged 2–6 years, and administered a category-based induction task. Participants were successively shown 8 sets of three pictures containing one target picture (a vegetable) and two test pictures (a vegetable dissimilar in colour to the target picture and a fruit similar in colour to the target picture). For each set, participants were told a novel property about the target picture and asked to generalise this property to one of the two test pictures. Additionally, the parents of each child filled out a questionnaire about his or her food rejection tendencies. Results on accuracy (i.e. if participants generalised the properties according to category membership, not perceptual similarity) provided the first empirical evidence in favour of a negative relationship between children’s food rejection and food category-based induction.     

Causal relations and feature similarity in children's inductive reasoning

Four experiments examined the development of property induction on the basis of causal relations. In the first 2 studies, 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults were presented with triads in which a target instance was equally similar to 2 inductive bases but shared a causal antecedent feature with 1 of them. All 3 age groups used causal relations as a basis for property induction, although the proportion of causal inferences increased with age. Subsequent experiments pitted causal relations against featural similarity in induction. It was found that adults and 8-year-olds, but not 5-year-olds, preferred shared causal relations over strong featural similarity as a basis for induction. The implications for models of inductive reasoning and development are discussed.     

Explaining prompts children to privilege inductively rich properties

Four experiments with preschool-aged children test the hypothesis that engaging in explanation promotes inductive reasoning on the basis of shared causal properties as opposed to salient (but superficial) perceptual properties. In Experiments 1a and 1b, 3- to 5-year-old children prompted to explain during a causal learning task were more likely to override a tendency to generalize according to perceptual similarity and instead extend an internal feature to an object that shared a causal property. Experiment 2 replicated this effect of explanation in a case of label extension (i.e., categorization). Experiment 3 demonstrated that explanation improves memory for clusters of causally relevant (non-perceptual) features, but impairs memory for superficial (perceptual) features, providing evidence that effects of explanation are selective in scope and apply to memory as well as inference. In sum, our data support the proposal that engaging in explanation influences children’s reasoning by privileging inductively rich, causal properties.     

Situation bounded conceptual organization in children: from action to spatial relations

This study performed on children aged 5, 8, and 10 years, deals with conceptual knowledge organization using a word association task. The results show that, at all these ages, the production of thematic relations outnumbers that of taxonomic relations; no thematic-to-taxonomic shift occurs. While children aged 5 years produce more action, temporal, and event relations, older children produce more spatial and property relations. An increased capacity for abstraction allows children aged 8 and 10 years to capture the properties of objects and the spatial layout where objects can be located independently from the specific actions occasionally taking place there. With age, even if events and actions lose their primacy, the perceptual and contextual dimensions of objects play a role in shaping children’s knowledge. The results suggest the opportunity to rethink the relevance of the cognitive economy principle in children’s conceptual organization.     

The role of relational reasoning in children's addition concepts

The study addresses the relational reasoning of different‐aged children and how addition reasoning is related to problem‐solving skills within addition and to reasoning skills outside addition. Ninety‐two 5‐ to 8‐year‐olds were asked to solve a series of conceptually related and unrelated addition problems, and the speed and accuracy of all self‐reported strategies were used to monitor their addition performance. Children were also given a series of general relational reasoning tasks to assess their ability to solve problems based on thematic, causal and visual relations. The results revealed that, while children were able to reason about commutativity relations, recognition of relations based on additive composition was rare. Furthermore, children's ability to reason about addition concepts increased with age and problem‐solving proficiency. Reasoning about addition concepts was related to performance on the thematic, causal and visual reasoning tasks for older children but not for younger children. Overall, the findings suggest that while children's early knowledge of addition relations is domain specific, as children develop in their broader reasoning abilities these developments enhance their addition reasoning.     

Relational integration in older adults

Reasoning requires making inferences based on information gleaned from a set of relations. The relational complexity of a problem increases with the number of relations that must be considered simultaneously to make a correct inference. Previous work (Viskontas, Morrison, Holyoak, Hummel, & Knowlton, ) has shown that older adults have difficulty integrating multiple relations during analogical reasoning, especially when required to inhibit irrelevant information. We report two experiments that examined the ability to integrate multiple relations in younger, middle-aged, and older adults performing two other reasoning tasks. These tasks systematically varied relational complexity, and required either inductive reasoning (a version of the Raven's Matrices Task) or transitive inference. Our results show that as people age they have increasing difficulty in solving problems that require them to integrate multiple relations. This difficulty may stem from a decrease in working memory capacity.     

归纳推理中的属性中心性效应

通过三个实验研究了属性的中心性程度对归纳推理的影响,结果表明,在归纳推理中存在属性中心性效应,中心属性比其他属性（次中心属性、再次中心属性）更能影响归纳推理。但属性中心性效应的出现受到了前提对象和结论对象相似性程度的制约,当前提对象和结论对象的相似程度高时,中心属性比其他属性更能影响归纳推理;随着相似性水平的降低,中心属性的归纳推理力度越来越弱,而次中心属性、再次中心属性的归纳推理力度则会依次表现出越来越强的趋势,到最后当前提对象和结论对象的属性完全不相似时,最次中心属性的归纳推理力度达到最高水平,而中心属性的归纳推理力度则降低到最低水平。由于再次中心属性的归纳推理力度的最高水平没有显著高于随机水平,而中心属性的归纳推理力度的最低水平却显著低于随机水平,因此,研究者认为,在前提对象和结论对象完全不相似的情况下,被试将确信不能采用中心属性来进行归纳推理的力度判断,而采用猜测的方式选择了肯定可以排除的项目之外的其他项目,这体现了具有不确定的归纳推理活动的过程的典型特征