儿童推断他人知识状态的知识偏差和无知偏差

采用“看见-知道”任务考察了儿童对他人知识状态推断的特点和可能存在的偏差效应。被试为90名3-5岁儿童。结果表明,3-5岁儿童已经理解他人看见即知道的关系;5岁儿童已经能准确地推断他人的知识状态,不存在偏差;但3、4岁儿童对他人知识状态的推断受到自身知识的影响且表现出自我中心的倾向：既存在知识偏差即因为自己知道而高估他人的知识,也存在无知偏差即因为自己的无知而低估他人的知识。4岁儿童的知识偏差程度与3岁儿童无异,但无知偏差低于3岁儿童,且4岁儿童的知识偏差程度大于其无知偏差,儿童克服无知偏差的时间可能早于克服知识偏差的时间。     

幼儿是如何通过错误信念任务的:信念还是规则?

旨在研究错误信念任务的有效性。采用真实信念(TB)任务和错误信念(FB)任务,以知否问题和想法问题为检测指标,通过比较儿童在FB和TB任务上的表现,本研究发现4～6岁儿童在知否问题上存在正确反应、忽略推断和“是”反应偏差三种反应模式。儿童通过FB任务的方式也有三类:基于信念、基于规则,以及其它(可能是猜测或其它未知策略)。儿童在知否问题与想法问题上的通过率并无显著差异。     

成人在错误信念任务上的表现

考察成人在错误信念(FB)任务上是否存在"知识偏差"效应。实验1重复Birch等的实验程序并未得到与之一致的结果,成人在FB任务上的表现不理想,且无"知识偏差"效应存在。实验2排除琴盒位置及颜色的突出性影响后,结果与实验1相似。成人在FB任务上的不佳表现与成人具有心理理论的事实相悖,说明把通过FB任务作为衡量心理理论的唯一评定标准有待商榷。     

儿童心理状态推理中的观点偏差

采用知识状态推理和冲突愿望推理任务考察儿童对知识状态和愿望状态推理的偏差。被试为108名3~5岁的儿童,结果表明在知识状态推理任务中,儿童对别人知识状态的推理会受到自己知识状态的影响,表现出自我中心的特点;而在冲突愿望推理任务中,与自己喜欢的情况相比,较小年龄的儿童在自己不喜欢的条件下更容易正确推理别人的愿望,表现出不对称性。因此儿童在对心理状态进行推理时具体表现出什么样的特点具有情境依赖性     

学前儿童心理理论及欺骗发展的关系研究

本文采用两种标准心理理论任务和两种欺骗任务,以3~6岁儿童为被试,探讨了学前儿童心理理论与欺骗发展的关系,得出如下结论:(1)在不同的误信念任务中,学前儿童的表现不一致;但仍存在一般发展趋势:3岁儿童不能通过误信念任务,4、5岁是儿童误信念发展的关键时期.(2)3岁儿童不能拥有隐藏意图的欺骗能力,4岁儿童拥有隐藏意图的欺骗能力.(3)3岁儿童能说谎,但假装无知的欺骗直到6岁才出现.(4)误信念理解与隐藏意图的欺骗存在相关,但与说谎和假装无知不存在相关.     

表面相似性对数量关系和相对大小关系理解的影响

研究采用数量关系匹配任务和相对大小关系匹配任务,通过高表面相似性、低表面相似性和交叉映射三种实验条件,探讨表面相似性对儿童和成人数量与相对大小关系理解的影响。研究一对37名4岁儿童进行三次每次间隔半年的追踪测查,结果表明4~5岁间儿童理解数量关系和相对大小关系的水平有显著提高;4岁儿童对数量关系的理解受到表面相似性的影响,4~5岁儿童对相对大小关系的理解受到表面相似性的影响。研究二探究44名成人数量和相对大小关系理解的特点,结果发现,成人完成两种关系匹配任务时也受到表面相似性的影响。     

3～6岁儿童“心理理论”的发展

“心理理论”是发展心理学的研究热点,在儿童获得心理理论的年龄和发展阶段问题上仍存在争议。该研究以3所城市幼儿园中的233名3-6岁儿童为被试,采用“意外转移”和“欺骗外表”两个错误信念测验任务考察儿童“心理理论”的获得年龄和发展阶段。研究得出如下结论:3岁之前儿童已理解外表与真实的区别,但还不能理解错误信念。 4岁儿童理解了欺骗外表任务中自己和他人的错误信念,5岁儿童理解了意外转移任务中的错误信念。4-5岁是儿童获得“心理理论”的关键年龄,但这会因测验任务的不同而有所差异。儿童的错误信念理解不存在显著的性别差异。     

从儿童赌博任务看热执行功能的发展

为考察热执行功能的发展,本研究通过儿童赌博任务检测了60名3～4岁儿童(男女各半)的情感决策。实验结果表明,3岁和4岁儿童在此任务上存在显著的年龄差异,4岁组在各试验组的分数呈上升趋势,他们在试验组2、尤其在试验组4和5中选择有利纸牌的次数显著多于3岁儿童,这反映出情感决策在3～4岁期间发展迅速。此外,儿童在此任务上的成绩存在很多可变性,可能掩盖了性别差异,因而,尽管男孩在最后两个试验组的成绩优于女孩,但性别差异在统计上并不显著。     

幼儿反事实推理的错误源分析

本研究选取57名3~5岁幼儿,考察了在两种选择和三种选择的反事实推理任务中儿童的表现以及是否出现现实错误。结果如下:无论在两种还是三种选择的反事实任务中,3岁组儿童的得分显著低于4岁和5岁组儿童,而4岁和5岁组儿童之间不存在显著差异;幼儿在反事实推理中的确会出现现实错误,但除此之外,幼儿在三种选择任务中也会选择现实和正确答案之外的第三个选项。由此可见,年幼儿童可能在抑制现实和建构反事实替代情境方面都存在困难,这尚需我们进一步探究。     

4-6岁儿童言语理解中世界知识运用能力的发展

以90名4-6岁学前儿童作为研究对象,考察了这一年龄段儿童在言语理解中对世界知识的运用能力及其发展特点。实验要求被试确定测试句中代词TA的回指名词,该回指名词需要被试依据相关的世界知识进行判断。实验发现：（1）4-6岁儿童在言语理解中对于世界知识的运用能力随年龄的增长而不断提高。（2）4岁组儿童对世界知识的运用能力水平较低,与其他两组儿童相比存在较显著的差异性;5岁组和6岁组儿童对世界知识的运用能力差异较小。（3）儿童在言语理解中对于不同类型的世界知识的运用能力存在显著性差异。与对现实生活相关的世界知识的运用能力相比,各组儿童对童话语境相关的世界知识的运用能力更为灵活。这一差异性在4-5岁组儿童表现得更为显著。     

错误信念任务中的知识偏差

有观点指出,年幼儿童在错误信念任务上的发展变化,不是发生了概念变化的质变,而是知识偏差的表现。知识偏差是指当我们尝试理解一个更不知情的观点时,不能忽略自己拥有的额外信息并受此影响而产生偏差的倾向。本文对知识偏差的含义及其在错误信念任务中可能产生的影响做了较为详细的综述和分析,并就在错误信念任务中消除知识偏差影响的可能性进行了探讨。     

Children are cursed: an asymmetric bias in mental-state attribution

Abstract - Young children have problems reasoning about false beliefs. We suggest that this is at least partially the result of the same curse of knowledge that has been observed in adults—a tendency to be biased by one's own knowledge when assessing the knowledge of a more naive person. We tested 3- to 5-year-old children in a knowledge-attribution task and found that young children exhibited a curse-of-knowledge bias to a greater extent than older children, a finding that is consistent with their greater difficulty with false-belief tasks. We also found that children's misattributions were asymmetric. They were limited to cases in which the children were more knowledgeable than the other person; misattributions did not occur when the children were more ignorant than the other person. This suggests that their difficulty is better characterized by the curse of knowledge than by more general egocentrism or rationality accounts.     

4～5岁儿童对社会事件记忆的消极偏向

消极偏向是指相对于积极或中性的刺激,消极刺激能够获得更多的注意和认知加工。本研究采用故事法通过三个实验考察4~5岁儿童对社会事件的记忆是否存在消极偏向。实验一发现幼儿对威胁行为的回忆成绩显著优于对中性行为和助人行为的回忆成绩。实验二发现幼儿对悲伤事件的回忆成绩显著优于对中性和愉快事件的回忆成绩。实验三发现幼儿对威胁行为的前瞻记忆成绩显著优于中性和助人行为的前瞻记忆成绩。研究说明无论事件是威胁性的还是非威胁性的,无论是回溯记忆还是前瞻记忆,4~5岁儿童的记忆都表现出消极偏向。     

Intergenerational transmission of attentional bias and anxiety

Earlier evidence has revealed a bi‐directional causal relationship between anxiety and attention biases in adults and children. This study investigated the prospective and concurrent relations between anxiety and attentional bias in a sample of 89 families (mothers, fathers, and first‐born children). Parents’ and children's attentional bias was measured when children were 7.5 years old, using both a visual probe task and visual search task with angry versus happy facial expressions. Generalized and social anxiety symptoms in parents and children were measured when children were 4.5 and 7.5 years old. Anxiety in parents and children was prospectively (but not concurrently) related to their respective attentional biases to threat: All participants showed a larger attentional bias to threat in the visual search (but not in the visual probe) task if they were more anxious at the 4.5 (but not at the 7.5) year measurement. Moreover, parents’ anxiety levels were prospectively predictive of the visual search attentional bias of their children after controlling for child anxiety. More anxiety in mothers at 4.5 years was related to a faster detection of angry among happy faces, while more anxiety in fathers predicted a faster detection of happy among angry faces in children at 7.5 years. We found no direct association between parental and child attentional biases. Our study contributes to the recently emerging literature on attentional biases as a potential mechanism in the intergenerational transmission of anxiety by showing that parents’ anxiety rather than parents’ attentional bias contributes to the intergenerational transmission of risk for child anxiety.     

4～6岁幼儿相似性判断与类别判断的知识效应

采用类别知识的分类学习模式,选取72名4-6岁幼儿作为被试,对相似性判断和类别判断的知识效应进行实验研究。结果表明：（1）相似性判断和类别判断存在知识效应。（2）相似性判断的知识效应存在显著的年龄差异,类别判断的知识效应不存在显著的年龄差异;5岁是知识学习对幼儿相似性判断产生影响的关键时期。（3）相似性判断知识效应的性别差异不显著,类别判断知识效应的性别差异极其显著,男孩更倾向于依据学习概念所强调的属性进行类别判断。     

Long-term memory and retrieval at ages 2, 3, 4

Two experiments are reported examining the contents and accessibility of a subset of the knowledge represented in long-term memory by very young children. In Experiment 1, children aged 2 to 4 were asked in a production task to name items commonly found in particular rooms in a house, and then to verify the appropriate locations of a set of miniature replicas of household items in a dollhouse. In Experiment 2, object context was manipulated to observe if further external context improves or changes production. Children 3 and 4 years old were asked to produce appropriate room items under one of three conditons: either presented no room objects as in the first experiment, or given room objects highly- or less-frequently associated in the first study.Very young children revealed considerable knowledge in this domain, and even at the youngest ages, core defining information was retrieved. It was equally clear, however, that young children know much more than they can produce, that there is noticeable improvement in ability to retrieve information over this age range, and that additional external object context does not necessarily facilitate retrieval from long-term memory.     

Mind perception of God in Japanese children

There is a theoretical debate regarding whether children represent God with reference to a human. Most previous studies have assessed this issue focusing on knowledge/omniscience in western children. This study used a theoretical framework characterising mental capacities in terms of motivational/emotional (experience) and cognitive (agency) mental capacities and tested whether Japanese children discriminated between God, a human, a baby and an invisible agent according to these capacities. Three‐ to 6‐year‐old children were asked about the experience and agency of the agents. The results revealed that children discriminated God from a human in terms of mental capacities including experience and agency in 3‐year‐old children. On the other hand, 4‐ to 6‐year‐old children, but not 3‐year‐old children, discriminated a human from a baby and an invisible person. The results suggest that the Japanese children's representations of God differed from their representation of a human during preschool years.