Deontic and epistemic reasoning in children

It is widely accepted that adults show an advantage for deontic over epistemic reasoning. Two published studies (Cummins, 1996b; Harris and Núñez, 1996, Experiment 4) found evidence of this “deontic advantage” in preschool-aged children and are frequently cited as evidence that preschoolers show the same deontic advantage as adults. However, neither study has been replicated, and it is not clear from either study that preschoolers were showing the deontic advantage under the same conditions as adults. The current research investigated these issues. Experiment 1 attempted to replicate both Cummins’s and Harris and Núñez’s studies with 3- and 4-year-olds (N = 56), replicating the former with 4-year-olds and the latter with both 3- and 4-year-olds. Experiment 2 modified Cummins’s task to remove the contextual differences between conditions, making it more similar to adult tasks, finding that 4-year-olds (n = 16) show no evidence of the deontic advantage when no authority figure is present in the deontic condition, whereas both 7-year-olds (n = 16) and adults (n = 28) do. Experiment 3 removed the authority figure from the deontic condition in Harris and Núñez’s task, again finding that 3- and 4-year-olds (N = 28) show no evidence of the deontic advantage under these conditions. These results suggest that for preschoolers, the deontic advantage is reliant on particular contextual cues such as the presence of an authority figure, in the deontic condition. By 7 years of age, however, children are reasoning like adults and show evidence of the advantage when no such contextual cues are present.     

Domain-general contributions to social reasoning: theory of mind and deontic reasoning re-explored

Using older adults and dual-task interference, we examined performance on two social reasoning tasks: theory of mind (ToM) tasks and versions of the deontic selection task involving social contracts and hazardous conditions. In line with performance accounts of social reasoning, evidence from both aging and the dual-task method suggested that domain-general resources contribute to performance of these tasks. Specifically, older adults were impaired relative to younger adults on all types of social reasoning tasks tested; performance varied as a function of the demands these tasks placed on domain-general resources. Moreover, in younger adults, simultaneous performance of a working memory task interfered with younger adults' performance on both types of social reasoning tasks; here too, the magnitude of the interference effect varied with the processing demands of each task. Limits placed on social reasoning by executive functions contribute a great deal to performance, even in old age and in healthy younger adults under conditions of divided attention. The role of potentially non-modular and modular contributions to social reasoning is discussed.     

Two approaches to the formalisation of defeasible deontic reasoning

This paper compares two ways of formalising defeasible deontic reasoning, both based on the view that the issues of conflicting obligations and moral dilemmas should be dealt with from the perspective of nonmonotonic reasoning. The first way is developing a special nonmonotonic logic for deontic statements. This method turns out to have some limitations, for which reason another approach is recommended, viz. combining an already existing nonmonotonic logic with a deontic logic. As an example of this method the language of Reiter's default logic is extended to include modal expressions, after which the argumentation framework in default logic of [20, 22] is used to give a plausible logical analysis of moral dilemmas and prima facie obligations.An earlier version of this article was written while the author was working at the Department of Computing, Imperial College London, supported by ESRC/MRC/SERC Joint Council Initiative Project G9212036. Work on the present version was supported by a research fellowship of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and by Esprit WG 8319 Modelage. I thank one of the referees for his interesting comments. Also, many thanks are due to Marek Sergot for valuable discussions on the topic of this paper.     

Deontic and epistemic reasoning in children revisited: Comment on Dack and Astington

Dack and Astington (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 110 2011 94–114) attempted to replicate the deontic reasoning advantage among preschoolers reported by Cummins (Memory & Cognition 24 1996 823–829) and by Harris and Nuñez (Child Development. 67 1996 572–1591). Dack and Astington argued that the apparent deontic advantage reported by these studies was in fact an artifact due to a methodological confound, namely, inclusion of an authority in the deontic condition only. Removing this confound attenuated the effect in young children but had no effect on the reasoning of 7-year-olds and adults. Thus, removing reference to authority “explains away” young children’s apparent precocity at this type of reasoning. But this explanation rests on (a) a misunderstanding of norms as targets of deontic reasoning and (b) conclusions based on a sample size that was too small to detect the effect in young children.     

The morality of harm

In this article, we discuss the range of concerns people weigh when evaluating the acceptability of harmful actions and propose a new perspective on the relationship between harm and morality. With this aim, we examine Kelly, Stich, Haley, Eng and Fessler’s [Kelly, D., Stich, S., Haley, K., Eng, S., & Fessler, D. (2007). Harm, affect, and the moral/conventional distinction. Mind and Language, 22, 117-131] recent claim that, contrary to Turiel and associates, people do not judge harm to be authority independent and general in scope in the context of complex harmful scenarios (e.g., prisoner interrogation, military training). In a modified replication of their study, we examined participants’ judgments of harmful actions in these contexts by taking into account their explanations for their judgments. We claim that both in terms of participants’ judgments and rationales, the results largely confirm our hypothesis that actions involving harm andinjustice or rights violation are judged to be authority independent and general in scope, which is a modification of Turiel’s traditional hypothesis.     

Individual differences in conditional reasoning: A dual-process account

Dual-process theories of conditional reasoning predict that relationships among four basic logical forms, and to intellectual ability and thinking predictions, are most evident when conflict arises between experiential and analytic processing (e.g., Stanovich & West, ). To test these predictions, 210 undergraduates were presented with conditionals for which the consequents were either weakly or strongly associated with alternative antecedents (i.e., WA and SA problems, respectively). Consistent with predictions, modus ponens inferences were not related to inferences on the uncertain forms (affirmation of the consequent, denial of the antecedent). On WA problems, modus tollens, affirmation of the consequent, and denial of the antecedent were related to each other and to verbal ability. Modus ponens was linked to verbal ability only when disabling conditions were activated. In accord with the predictions of Stanovich and West (), on most problems, thinking dispositions predicted variance in inferences independently from verbal ability. We argue that a largely automatic experiential processing system governs performance on modus ponens, unless disablers are activated. Consciously controlled analytic processing predominates on the uncertain forms and, under some conditions, on modus tollens.     

An epistemic and dynamic approach to abductive reasoning: Abductive problem and abductive solution

We propose a study of abductive reasoning addressing it as an epistemic process that involves both an agent?s information and the actions that modify this information. More precisely, we present and discuss definitions of an abductive problem and an abductive solution in terms of an agent?s information, that is, in terms of knowledge and beliefs. The discussion is then formalised by ‘implementing’ our definitions in a dynamic epistemic logic framework, where the properties of these definitions are studied, an epistemic action that represents the application of an abductive step is introduced, and an illustrative example is provided. A number of the most interesting properties of abductive reasoning (those highlighted by Peirce) are shown to be better modelled within this approach.     

Spatial associations in relational reasoning: Evidence for a SNARC-like effect

Relational reasoning (A > B, B > C, therefore A > C) shares a number of similarities with numerical cognition, including a common behavioural signature, the symbolic distance effect. Just as reaction times for evaluating relational conclusions decrease as the distance between two ordered objects increases, people need less time to compare two numbers when they are distant (e.g., 2 and 8) than when they are close (e.g., 3 and 4). Given that some remain doubtful about such analogical representations in relational reasoning, we determine whether numerical cognition and relational reasoning have other overlapping behavioural effects. Here, using relational reasoning problems that require the alignment of six items, we provide evidence showing that the subjects' linear mental representation affects motor performance when evaluating conclusions. Items accessible from the left part of a linear representation are evaluated faster when the response is made by the left, rather than the right, hand and the reverse is observed for items accessible from the right part of the linear representation. This effect, observed with the prepositions to the left of and to the right of as well as with above and below, is analogous to the SNARC (Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes) effect, which is characterized by an interaction between magnitude of numbers and side of response.     

Editorial: The role of reasoning in mathematical thinking

ABSTRACT

Research into mathematics often focuses on basic numerical and spatial intuitions, and one key property of numbers: their magnitude. The fact that mathematics is a system of complex relationships that invokes reasoning usually receives less attention. The purpose of this special issue is to highlight the intricate connections between reasoning and mathematics, and to use insights from the reasoning literature to obtain a more complete understanding of the processes that underlie mathematical cognition. The topics that are discussed range from the basic heuristics and biases to the various ways in which complex, effortful reasoning contributes to mathematical cognition, while also considering the role of individual differences in mathematics performance. These investigations are not only important at a theoretical level, but they also have broad and important practical implications, including the possibility to improve classroom practices and educational outcomes, to facilitate people's decision-making, as well as the clear and accessible communication of numerical information.     

Culture and the quest for universal principles in moral reasoning

The importance of including cultural perspectives in the study of human cognition has become apparent in recent decades, and the domain of moral reasoning is no exception. The present review focuses on moral cognition, beginning with Kohlberg's model of moral development which relies heavily on people's justifications for their judgments and then shifting to more recent theories that rely on rapid, intuitive judgments and see justifications as more or less irrelevant to moral cognition. Despite this dramatic shift, analyses of culture and moral decision-making have largely been framed as a quest for and test of universal principles of moral judgment. In this review, we discuss challenges that remain in trying to understand crosscultural variability in moral values and the processes that underlie moral cognition. We suggest that the universalist framework may lead to an underestimation of the role of culture in moral reasoning. Although the field has made great strides in incorporating more and more cultural perspectives in order to understand moral cognition, theories of moral reasoning still do not allow for substantial variation in how people might conceptualize the domain of the moral. The processes that underlie moral cognition may not be a human universal in any simple sense, because moral systems may play different roles in different cultures. We end our review with a discussion of work that remains to be done to understand cultural variation in the moral domain.     

Sample diversity and premise typicality in inductive reasoning: evidence for developmental change

Evaluating whether a limited sample of evidence provides a good basis for induction is a critical cognitive task. We hypothesized that whereas adults evaluate the inductive strength of samples containing multiple pieces of evidence by attending to the relations among the exemplars (e.g., sample diversity), six-year-olds would attend to the degree to which each individual exemplar in a sample independently appears informative (e.g., premise typicality). To test these hypotheses, participants were asked to select between diverse and non-diverse samples to help them learn about basic-level animal categories. Across various between-subject conditions (N=133), we varied the typicality present in the diverse and non-diverse samples. We found that adults reliably selected to examine diverse over non-diverse samples, regardless of exemplar typicality, six-year-olds preferred to examine samples containing typical exemplars, regardless of sample diversity, and nine-year-olds were somewhat in the midst of this developmental transition.     

Memory for "mean" over "nice": the influence of threat on children's face memory

Adults remember faces of threatening over non-threatening individuals. This memory advantage could be indicative of a system rooted deeply in cognitive evolution to track and remember individuals who have been harmful in the past and therefore might be harmful again. Conversely, adults may have learned through experience that it pays to be vigilant. In the present research, we investigated whether attention to threatening individuals is privileged in young children's face memory. In Experiment 1, preschool-age children showed a face recognition memory advantage for individuals who were said to have committed harmful rather than helpful actions. In a further experiment, children did not selectively remember individuals who were described as the recipients of these actions, suggesting that the memory enhancement was produced by threat rather than negative valence. Together, these findings provide evidence for an early-developing system for remembering threatening individuals, consistent with an evolutionary account of its origins.     

Dichotic listening in children: age-related changes in direction and magnitude of ear advantage

Children between the ages of 5 and 12 years were tested with dichotic listening tests utilizing single syllable words and random presentations of digits. They produced a higher prevalence of left ear dominance than expected, especially among right-handed children when tested with words. Whether more children demonstrate the LEA because of right hemisphere dominance for language or because there is less stability in ear advantage direction at younger ages cannot be fully resolved by this study. When ear advantages were measured by subtracting each child's lower score from the higher score without regard to right or left direction, an age-related trend toward lower measures of ear advantage was evident. This trend was greater for dichotic words than for dichotic digits. Structural factors that may be related to these results and possible influences of attention and verbal workload on the two kinds of dichotic stimuli are discussed.     

Early group bias in the Faroe Islands: Cultural variation in children's group-based reasoning

Recent developmental research demonstrates that group bias emerges early in childhood. However, little is known about the extent to which bias in minimal (i.e., arbitrarily assigned) groups varies with children's environment and experience, and whether such bias is universal across cultures. In this study, the development of group bias was investigated using a minimal groups paradigm with 46 four- to six-year-olds from the Faroe Islands. Children observed in-group and out-group members exhibiting varying degrees of prosocial behaviour (egalitarian or stingy sharing). Children did not prefer their in-group in the pretest, but a pro-in-group and anti-out-group sentiment emerged in both conditions in the posttest. Faroese children's response patterns differ from those of American children [Schug, M. G., Shusterman, A., Barth, H., & Patalano, A. L. (2013). Minimal-group membership influences children's responses to novel experience with group members. Developmental Science, 16(1), 47–55], suggesting that intergroup bias shows cultural variation even in a minimal groups context.     

Mutual influences between the implicit and explicit self-concepts: The role of memory activation and motivated reasoning

Whereas previous research has predominantly focused on dissociations between the explicit and implicit self-concepts, the current research investigates how these aspects of self-representation come into correspondence through the activation of information about the self in memory. Experiment 1 provides evidence for a “bottom-up” process of self-construal in which information activated in the implicit self-concept produces congruent changes in the explicit self-concept. Experiment 2 provides evidence for a “top-down” process of self-construal in which the motivated assertion of a propositional belief in the explicit self-concept leads, via a process of confirmatory hypothesis testing, to the activation of substantiating information in the implicit self-concept. These two processes of self-concept change are integrated within a framework that specifies how the explicit and implicit self-concepts are related within an overall, dynamic self-system. Possibilities for expanding the framework to account for self-concept dissociations are discussed.     

Technical intelligence in animals: the kea model

The ability to act on information flexibly is one of the cornerstones of intelligent behavior. As particularly informative example, tool-oriented behavior has been investigated to determine to which extent nonhuman animals understand means-end relations, object affordances, and have specific motor skills. Even planning with foresight, goal-directed problem solving and immediate causal inference have been a focus of research. However, these cognitive abilities may not be restricted to tool-using animals but may be found also in animals that show high levels of curiosity, object exploration and manipulation, and extractive foraging behavior. The kea, a New Zealand parrot, is a particularly good example. We here review findings from laboratory experiments and field observations of keas revealing surprising cognitive capacities in the physical domain. In an experiment with captive keas, the success rate of individuals that were allowed to observe a trained conspecific was significantly higher than that of naive control subjects due to their acquisition of some functional understanding of the task through observation. In a further experiment using the string-pulling task, a well-probed test for means-end comprehension, we found the keas finding an immediate solution that could not be improved upon in nine further trials. We interpreted their performance as insightful in the sense of being sensitive of the relevant functional properties of the task and thereby producing a new adaptive response without trial-and-error learning. Together, these findings contribute to the ongoing debate on the distribution of higher cognitive skills in the animal kingdom by showing high levels of sensorimotor intelligence in animals that do not use tools. In conclusion, we suggest that the 'Technical intelligence hypothesis' (Byrne, Machiavellian intelligence II: extensions and evaluations, pp 289-211, 1997), which has been proposed to explain the origin of the ape/monkey grade-shift in intelligence by a selection pressure upon an increased efficiency in foraging behavior, should be extended, that is, applied to some birds as well.     

Mainland Chinese and Canadian adolescents’ judgments and reasoning about the fairness of democratic and other forms of government

This study examined the judgments and reasoning of adolescents (ages 12–19 years) from three sites in urban and rural China (n = 270) and in an urban Canadian comparison sample (n = 72), about the fairness of various forms of democratic and non-democratic government. Adolescents from both China and Canada preferred democratic forms of government, such as representative or direct democracy, to non-democratic systems, such as a meritocracy and an oligarchy of the wealthy, at all ages. Adolescents appealed to fundamental democratic principles, such as representation, voice, and majority rule, to justify their judgments. Similar age-related patterns in judgments and reasoning were found across cultures and across diverse settings within China.     

Memory indexing of sequential symptom processing in diagnostic reasoning

In diagnostic reasoning, knowledge about symptoms and their likely causes is retrieved to generate and update diagnostic hypotheses in memory. By letting participants learn about causes and symptoms in a spatial array, we could apply eye tracking during diagnostic reasoning to trace the activation level of hypotheses across a sequence of symptoms and to evaluate process models of diagnostic reasoning directly. Gaze allocation on former locations of symptom classes and possible causes reflected the diagnostic value of initial symptoms, the set of contending hypotheses, consistency checking, biased symptom processing in favor of the leading hypothesis, symptom rehearsal, and hypothesis change. Gaze behavior mapped the reasoning process and was not dominated by auditorily presented symptoms. Thus, memory indexing proved applicable for studying reasoning tasks involving linguistic input. Looking at nothing revealed memory activation because of a close link between conceptual and motor representations and was stable even after one week.