What Are the Odds? Preschoolers' Ability to Distinguish between Possible, Impossible, and Probabilistically Distinct Future Outcomes

Autor/inn/en	Crimston, Jessica; Redshaw, Jonathan; Suddendorf, Thomas
Titel	What Are the Odds? Preschoolers' Ability to Distinguish between Possible, Impossible, and Probabilistically Distinct Future Outcomes
Quelle	In: Developmental Psychology, 59 (2023) 10, S.1881-1891 (11 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Crimston, Jessica)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0012-1649
DOI	10.1037/dev0001587
Schlagwörter	Preschool Children; Thinking Skills; Intuition; Discrimination Learning; Probability; Decision Making Skills; Foreign Countries; Performance; Prediction; Australia + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Pre-school age; Preschool age; Child; Children; Pre-school education; Preschool education; Vorschulalter; Kind; Kinder; Vorschulkind; Vorschulkinder; Vorschulerziehung; Vorschule; Denkfähigkeit; Lernen; Lernprozess; Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung; Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie; Ausland; Achievement; Leistung; Vorhersage; Australien
Abstract	Previous research has suggested that infants are able to distinguish between possible and impossible events and make basic probabilistic inferences. However, much of this research has focused on children's intuitions about past events for which the outcome is already determined but unknown. Here, we investigated children's ability to use probabilistic information to guide their choices and actively shape future events. In two experiments, we examined whether children could successfully direct a marble through a series of tubes, selecting between routes where success was possible, impossible, or guaranteed (i.e., 50% vs. 0%, or 50% vs. 100%; Experiment 1), and routes where success was mutually possible but probabilistically distinct (e.g., 33% vs. 50%; Experiment 2). In total, we tested 136 two- to five-year-old children (76 males), recruited predominantly through a museum in Brisbane, Australia. In Experiment 1, we found that while younger children typically did not perform above chance, the vast majority of 4- and 5-year-olds consistently distinguished between possible and impossible or guaranteed outcomes. In Experiment 2, children of all ages had greater difficulty with distinguishing between two possible outcomes with different likelihoods than between possible and impossible/guaranteed outcomes, although some individual 4- and 5-year-olds demonstrated competence when making both distinctions. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01