Word, Thought, and Deed: The Role of Object Categories in Children's Inductive Inferences and Exploratory Play

Autor/inn/en	Schulz, Laura E.; Standing, Holly R.; Bonawitz, Elizabeth B.
Titel	Word, Thought, and Deed: The Role of Object Categories in Children's Inductive Inferences and Exploratory Play
Quelle	In: Developmental Psychology, 44 (2008) 5, S.1266-1276 (11 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0012-1649
DOI	10.1037/0012-1649.44.5.1266
Schlagwörter	Play; Preschool Children; Inferences; Influences; Developmental Psychology; Child Development; Perception; Cues; Logical Thinking; Experiments; Learning Processes + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Spiel; Pre-school age; Preschool age; Child; Children; Pre-school education; Preschool education; Vorschulalter; Kind; Kinder; Vorschulkind; Vorschulkinder; Vorschulerziehung; Vorschule; Inference; Inferenz; Influence; Einfluss; Einflussfaktor; Entwicklungspsychologie; Kindesentwicklung; Wahrnehmung; Stichwort; Erprobung; Learning process; Lernprozess
Abstract	Previous research (e.g., S. A. Gelman & E. M. Markman, 1986; A. Gopnik & D. M. Sobel, 2000) suggests that children can use category labels to make inductive inferences about nonobvious causal properties of objects. However, such inductive generalizations can fail to predict objects' causal properties when (a) the property being projected varies within the category, (b) the category is arbitrary (e.g., things smaller than a bread box), or (c) the property being projected is due to an exogenous intervention rather than intrinsic to the object kind. In 4 studies, the authors showed that preschoolers (M = 48 months; range = 42-57 months) were sensitive to these constraints on induction and selectively engaged in exploration when evidence about objects' causal properties conflicted with inductive generalizations from the objects' kind to their causal powers. This suggests that the exploratory actions children generate in free play could support causal learning. (Contains 1 table, 3 figures, and 4 footnotes.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10