Acquiring an understanding of design: evidence from children's insight problem solving
Acquiring an understanding of design: evidence from children's insight problem solving
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DOI：
10.1016/s0010-0277(03)00098-2
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发表时间：
2003-09-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.4
通讯作者：
German, TP
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Defeyter, MA;German, TP
人类制造工具并利用它们解决问题的能力可能不是动物学上独一无二的，但肯定是非凡的。然而，人们对使人类如此有能力制造和使用工具的概念机制知之甚少。成人和儿童是否有专门用于理解人造物品的概念？如果是这样，这些概念是否是为了解决新问题而部署的？在这里，我们提出了新的数据，来自解决问题的实验，支持以下。(i)儿童对人工制品功能的概念的结构在5岁到7岁之间发生了深刻的变化。在5岁时，孩子的概念机器将人工制品的功能定义为用户可能拥有的任何目标;到7岁时，其功能由人工制品的典型或预期用途定义。(ii)这种概念转变对解决问题的表现产生了显着的影响，即孩子的工件功能概念似乎在解决问题中得到了运用。(iii)这种对问题解决的影响不是由儿童对特定工具的典型使用的知识量差异引起的;它是由儿童的工件概念的结构（组织和部署儿童的知识）介导的。在两项研究中，5至7岁的儿童被匹配为他们对特定人工制品“是用来”的知识，然后给出一个只有当该工具用于非典型目的时才能解决的问题。所有儿童在基线条件下表现良好。但是当他们被展示了神器的典型功能时，5岁的孩子比6-7岁的孩子解决问题的速度要快得多。因为所有的孩子都知道这些工具是用来做什么的，所以仅仅是知识上的差异并不能解释结果。我们认为，年龄较大的儿童解决问题时，典型的功能是启动，因为（一）他们的工件概念在解决问题中发挥了作用，（二）预期的目的是中央他们的概念的工件功能，但不是年幼的孩子。(C)2003 Elsevier Science B. V.保留所有权利。
The human ability to make tools and use them to solve problems may not be zoologically unique, but it is certainly extraordinary. Yet little is known about the conceptual machinery that makes humans so competent at making and using tools. Do adults and children have concepts specialized for understanding human-made artifacts? If so, are these concepts deployed in attempts to solve novel problems? Here we present new data, derived from problem-solving experiments, which support the following. (i) The structure of the child's concept of artifact function changes profoundly between ages 5 and 7. At age 5, the child's conceptual machinery defines the function of an artifact as any goal a user might have; by age 7, its function is defined by the artifact's typical or intended use. (ii) This conceptual shift has a striking effect on problem-solving performance, i.e. the child's concept of artifact function appears to be deployed in problem solving. (iii) This effect on problem solving is not caused by differences in the amount of knowledge that children have about the typical use of a particular tool; it is mediated by the structure of the child's artifact concept (which organizes and deploys the child's knowledge). In two studies, children between 5 and 7 years of age were matched for their knowledge of what a particular artifact "is for", and then given a problem that can only be solved if that tool is used for an atypical purpose. All children performed well in a baseline condition. But when they were primed by a demonstration of the artifact's typical function, 5-year-old children solved the problem much faster than 6-7-year-old children. Because all children knew what the tools were for, differences in knowledge alone cannot explain the results. We argue that the older children were slower to solve the problem when the typical function was primed because (i) their artifact concept plays a role in problem solving, and (ii) intended purpose is central to their concept of artifact function, but not to that of the younger children. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.