儿童推理能力的新发现——儿童的道义推理

逻辑推理是人类特有的能力。人们利用推理可以从已知知识中推出新知识,从事实或假设中得到新结论。掌握正确的逻辑推理规则无疑会提高人分析和解决问题的能力。正因为推理能力对人类的重要性,心理学对人的推理的研究从未中断过。     

Children's Social and Moral Reasoning About Exclusion

ABSTRACT— Developmental research on social and moral reasoning about exclusion has utilized a social-domain theory, in contrast to a global stage theory, to investigate children's evaluations of gender- and race-based peer exclusion. The social-domain model postulates that moral, social-conventional, and personal reasoning coexist in children's evaluations of inclusion and exclusion, and that the priority given to these forms of judgments varies by the age of the child, the context, and the target of exclusion. Findings from developmental intergroup research studies disconfirm a general-stage-model approach to morality in the child, and provide empirical data on the developmental origins and emergence of intergroup attitudes regarding prejudice, bias, and exclusion.     

Children's Reasoning in Solving Relational Problems of Deduction

This article reports on a study of children's deductive reasoning in solving novel relational problems. Detailed protocols were obtained from 264 children (aged 9- 12 years) who verbalised their thinking as they solved the problems. The study included the development of a three-phase theory based on Johnson-Laird and Byrne's mental models perspective, but with some distinct modifications. These include a focus on the relational complexity entailed in model construction and in premise integration, and the advancement of four reasoning principles that are applied throughout problem solution (in contrast to Johnson-Laird's falsification processes as the hallmark of deductive reasoning). The reported case studies and the results of statistical analyses supported predictions arising from the proposed theory, including the key role of the reasoning principles. The results also showed that problem difficulty is a function of relational complexity, not of the number of models to be constructed, as argued by Johnson-Laird and Byrne.     

Language and Operations in Children's Class Inclusion Reasoning: The Operational Semantic Theory of Reasoning

In this article we critique two prominent theories of reasoning—mental logic and mental models—and argue that reasoning does not consist of either applying logical rules or constructing mental models. Instead, we propose anoperational semantictheory of reasoning, according to which reasoning is based on children's operational understanding of key terms in a given problem. We then go on to consider an important recent developmental theory of reasoning, fuzzy-trace theory. In order to illustrate the view of reasoning proposed here we report a study of class inclusion. Dramatic differences in class inclusion performance were found as the result of linguistic context; performance was significantly higher when an explicit request for a subclass comparison preceded the class inclusion question as compared to a standard condition when the class inclusion question alone was asked. This was the case, however, only when the prior subclass comparison question referred to the same dimensions as the class inclusion question and not when irrelevant subclasses were referred to. Children's performance was also better when they sorted the materials into the supraordinate class as compared to the subclasses, but not when the experimenter sorted them for the child. These effects due to the operational and linguistic manipulations are discussed in terms of a generaloperational semantictheory of reasoning.     

儿童归纳推理机制述评

在儿童早期归纳推理机制的探索过程中,一直存在着两种观点.一种认为儿童归纳推理是以类别或概念为基础的;另一种则认为儿童归纳推理是以相似性为基础的.这两种观点可能各自反应了儿童归纳推理的一个方面:前者可能说明的是儿童在知识丰富领域的归纳推理;而后者则可能说明的是儿童在知识贫乏领域的归纳推理.     

儿童信念─愿望推理的研究：争鸣与展望

儿童的信念─愿望推理是心理理论研究的主要内容。多年来,研究者对儿童信念─愿望推理的发展特征及其心理机制进行了大量研究,取得了一系列富有意义的结论。但迄今为止仍有许多问题存在争议,如：儿童究竟何时开始具有信念─愿望推理的能力？儿童在错误信念任务上从不正确到正确反应的转换机制是什么？儿童如何进行信念─愿望推理的加工？该文回顾与探讨了上述存在争鸣的问题,并在此基础上对该领域未来研究方向做了展望。     

因果条件中儿童社会信息推理的发展

采用因果条件性逻辑推理研究的一般模式,研究了儿童社会信息因果推理发展状况。实验结果表明：(1)儿童社会信息推理能力呈年级性递增。(2)社会信息的内容会影响儿童社会信息推理的能力。(3)儿童四种逻辑形式推理能力之间的差异显著．AC、DA在年级水平上差异都十分显著,但MP和MT在年级水平上差异不显著,儿童在各个年级四种推理能力之间的差异都显著,确定型和非确定型逻辑推理能力之间的差异显著。(4)逻辑形式的难度、儿童的年龄影响儿童合理化解释的类型。     

规则顺序与规则类型对儿童规则推理的影响

学前儿童时期是各种推理能力产生和发展的重要时期。本研究采用Frye和Zelazo等（1996）所设计的“二进二出”装置,设置了规则顺序、规则类型的规则推理任务,采用个别实验法,研究了90名3～4岁儿童规则推理能力的发展。在本研究条件下,结果发现：1．当规则呈现顺序不同时,儿童规则推理成绩差异显著,先呈现哪个规则,则利用这个规则进行推理的成绩就较好;2．不同规则类型下儿童的推理成绩差异极其显著,竖直规则下的推理任务更容易;3．3．5～4岁是儿童二维合取规则推理能力发展的快速期。     

3～5岁儿童表面与结构相似性类比推理的实验研究

采用经典类比推理问题对3~5岁儿童表面相似性与结构相似性类比推理能力进行了实验研究。结果发现:(1)表面相似性与结构相似性对儿童解决类比问题的影响不同。一般来说,前者更有利于3~5岁儿童类比问题的解决;(2)儿童解决表面相似性与结构相似性类比问题的能力随年龄增长而发展,但发展趋势不同。在表面相似性问题方面,4岁以前发展较慢,而4岁以后的发展较快;在结构相似性问题方面,4岁以前发展较快,而4岁以后的发展较慢。4岁是儿童解决类比推理问题能力的转折点;(3)在本实验条件下,工作记忆负荷对儿童解决表面相似性类比问题与结构相似性类比问题的影响不显著;(4)类比映射关系提示能促进儿童解决两类类比问题,但对不同年龄儿童的作用是非线性的。     

Popular and Rejected Children's Social Reasoning: Linking Social Status and Social Knowledge

The relationship between children's social status/sex and their moral judgments was examined. Sixty-four second- and third-grade children (33 boys, 31 girls) who were identified as popular or rejected by peer sociometric measures were shown pictures of children engaged in moral and second-order transgressions. The children were asked to rate each event on (a) the degree of seriousness for other and self, (b) the amount of punishment for other and self, and (c) rule alterability. The children were also asked for justification of the transgressions (why they thought the transgressions were wrong). The popular and rejected children differentiated between moral and second-order transgressions based upon criterion ratings and justifications. Differences emerged between the popular and the rejected children's ratings and justifications for moral transgressions, suggesting that children's moral judgments are related to social experiences associated with peer acceptance and rejection.     

图形推理任务中儿童策略获得的发展机制

运用微观发生学设计对30名6岁儿童在矩阵填充任务中策略获得的发展机制进行了研究。结果发现：(1)从策略获得点前的错误类型分析,这个阶段主要是元认知机制起决定作用,图形推理的策略获得是一个渐进过程;(2)从反应时的变化趋势分析,元认知机制仍起决定作用,而在策略获得后期,联结机制代替元认知机制起决定性作用;(3)从自我解释中提到的维度分析,也表明元认知机制起着决定性作用,但联结机制在某些题目维度上已经逐渐“竞争”超过了元认知机制。     

Persisting Effects of Instruction on Young Children's Syllogistic Reasoning with Incongruent and Abstract Premises

Studies of reasoning have often invoked a distinction between a natural or ordinary consideration of the premises, in which they are interpreted, and even distorted, in the light of empirical knowledge, and an analytic or logical consideration of the premises, in which they are analysed in a literal fashion for their logical implications. Two or three years of schooling have been seen as critical for the spontaneous use of analytic reasoning. In two experiments, however, 4-year-olds who were given brief instructions that prompted use of an analytic approach continued to adopt this approach one week later. Thus, when given syllogistic problems in which the major premise was incongruent with their empirical knowledge (e.g. “All snow is black”), instructed children reasoned more accurately from that premise both immediately and a week later as compared to children given only a basic introduction. A third experiment showed that instructions also improved 4-year-olds' performance on hard-to-imagine, abstract material (e.g. “All mib is white”). Similarities between the effects of brief instruction and of schooling are discussed.     

基于IRT模型的儿童图形推理能力动态评估研究

MRMLC模型是一种常见的动态评估项目反应理论模型。本研究结合小学儿童图形推理能力发展的特点,采用前测-干预-后测的动态评估模式,对来自江西省北部的四到六年级共177名儿童的图形推理能力进行了基于MRMLC模型的动态评估。研究结果表明通过动态评估我们不仅可以获知儿童图形推理能力的当前水平;而且,还可以进一步分析和比较儿童在各测量情景所测的潜在水平。     

Young Children's Distributive Justice Reasoning,Behavior, and Role Taking: Their Consistency and Relationship

Young children's reasoning about distributive justice, behavior, and role taking were measured to determine their consistency and relationship in three picture stories and in three parallel real situations in the classroom. Relatively nonverbal techniques were used. Children's reasoning and behavior were related, but their actual behavior in a real situation was at a lower level than was their reasoning about a hypothetical situation. Perceptual and social role taking were related with each other and with reasoning. Each level of social role taking was necessary for the corresponding stage of reasoning.     

Propositional Reasoning that Tracks Probabilistic Reasoning

This paper concerns the extent to which uncertain propositional reasoning can track probabilistic reasoning, and addresses kinematic problems that extend the familiar Lottery paradox. An acceptance rule assigns to each Bayesian credal state p a propositional belief revision method ${\sf B}_{p}$ , which specifies an initial belief state ${\sf B}_{p}(\top)$ that is revised to the new propositional belief state ${\sf B}(E)$ upon receipt of information E. An acceptance rule tracks Bayesian conditioning when ${\sf B}_{p}(E) = {\sf B}_{p|_{E}}(\top)$ , for every E such that p(E)?>?0; namely, when acceptance by propositional belief revision equals Bayesian conditioning followed by acceptance. Standard proposals for uncertain acceptance and belief revision do not track Bayesian conditioning. The ??Lockean?? rule that accepts propositions above a probability threshold is subject to the familiar lottery paradox (Kyburg 1961), and we show that it is also subject to new and more stubborn paradoxes when the tracking property is taken into account. Moreover, we show that the familiar AGM approach to belief revision (Harper, Synthese 30(1?C2):221?C262, 1975; Alchourrón et al., J Symb Log 50:510?C530, 1985) cannot be realized in a sensible way by any uncertain acceptance rule that tracks Bayesian conditioning. Finally, we present a plausible, alternative approach that tracks Bayesian conditioning and avoids all of the paradoxes. It combines an odds-based acceptance rule proposed originally by Levi (1996) with a non-AGM belief revision method proposed originally by Shoham (1987).     

Mechanistic probability

I describe a realist, ontologically objective interpretation of probability, ??far-flung frequency (FFF) mechanistic probability??. FFF mechanistic probability is defined in terms of facts about the causal structure of devices and certain sets of frequencies in the actual world. Though defined partly in terms of frequencies, FFF mechanistic probability avoids many drawbacks of well-known frequency theories and helps causally explain stable frequencies, which will usually be close to the values of mechanistic probabilities. I also argue that it??s a virtue rather than a failing of FFF mechanistic probability that it does not define single-case chances, and compare some aspects of my interpretation to a recent interpretation proposed by Strevens.     

The Reasoning View and Defeasible Practical Reasoning

According to the Reasoning View about normative reasons, facts about normative reasons for action can be understood in terms of facts about the norms of practical reasoning. I argue that this view is subject to an overlooked class of counterexamples, familiar from debates about Subjectivist theories of normative reasons. Strikingly, the standard strategy Subjectivists have used to respond to this problem cannot be adapted to the Reasoning View. I think there is a solution to this problem, however. I argue that the norms of practical reasoning, like the norms of theoretical reasoning, are characteristically defeasible, in a sense I make precise. Recognizing this property of those norms makes space for a solution to the problem. The resulting view is in a way analogous to the familiar defeasibility theory of knowledge, but it avoids a standard objection to that theory.     

Salience Reasoning

The thesis of this essay is that social conventions of the kind Lewis modeled are generated and maintained by a form of practical reasoning which is essentially common. This thesis is defended indirectly by arguing for an interpretation of the role of salience in Lewis’s account of conventions. The remarkable ability of people to identify salient options and appreciate their practical significance in contexts of social interaction, it is argued, is best explained in terms of their exercise of what I call “salience reasoning,” a form of common practical reasoning. The more widely accepted understanding of salience competence, the “natural salience” understanding, fails as an interpretation of the notion at work in Lewis and Schelling (on whom Lewis relied) and is inadequate as an explanation of salience competence.     

Blind Reasoning

The paper asks under what conditions deductive reasoning transmits justification from its premises to its conclusion. It argues that both standard externalist and standard internalist accounts of this phenomenon fail. The nature of this failure is taken to indicate the way forward: basic forms of deductive reasoning must justify by being instances of 'blind but blameless' reasoning. Finally, the paper explores the suggestion that an inferentialist account of the logical constants can help explain how such reasoning is possible.     

Reasoning Dialogues

When people argue with others in conversation, they make a variety of conversational moves: They make claims, ask for justification of others' claims, attack claims, and attack claims' justifications. The arrangement of these moves gives argumentation its characteristic shape. This article illustrates a proposed format for conversations of this type, and it reviews some findings about the way people understand and evaluate these conversations. The findings suggest that judgments of the arguers' burden depend not only on the content of their claims, but also on the conversation's structure. In addition, judgments of the strength of a justification—an arguer's evidence or explanation—are a function of the argument's setting.