Developmental Changes in Reasoning about Biological Kinds

生物种类推理的发展变化

• 批准号: 1729540
• 负责人: Marjorie Rhodes
• 金额: $ 62.47万
• 依托单位: New York University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-08-15 至 2020-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1729540&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Developmental; Changes; Reasoning; about; Biological

This project will develop new strategies to facilitate efficient scientific reasoning in young children. From early in development, children use categories to learn about the world around them. For example, upon learning something about an individual animal, children can generalize this information to the category as a whole and use it to guide behavior. In this way, if a child learns that a particular spider will bite, the child might infer that all spiders bite, and use that information to avoid spiders in the future. A critical challenge of this type of reasoning is determining whether a limited sample of evidence--for example, a specific spider observed on a particular day--provides information likely to be true of other category members as well. Young children often evaluate samples of evidence much less efficiently than older children or adults, which can impede their biological, social, and scientific reasoning. This project will enhance basic understanding of how and why inductive learning changes across childhood. Through a series of experiments, it will reveal the cognitive and developmental mechanisms that underlie the age-related changes in children's reasoning strategies that have been documented in previous studies. This project will then use this knowledge to devise and test new strategies for facilitating efficient reasoning in children. By developing new educational strategies, partnering with a major informal educational institution, and providing training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students, this project maximizes opportunities for this research to influence educational practices and benefit educators, children, and future researchers.The present studies test the hypothesis that younger children seek out samples of evidence that they think best exemplify what members of a category should be like, whereas older children and adults seek out samples that cover the broad variation that exists within categories. For example, young children might think that birds should be relatively small and fly, so when they are seeking information about birds in general, they might choose to consider primarily birds with these traits, such as robins and bluebirds. In contrast, older children might seek out more diverse samples, containing birds such as robins and penguins. To test this hypothesis experimentally, children will be presented with samples of animals and asked to choose which are most informative for learning about the category as a whole. To chart the trajectory of developmental change in children's strategies, the first set of studies will examine whether 5- to 10-year-olds select samples that maximize values on key properties (e.g., choosing to examine the two fastest cheetahs in the world to learn about cheetahs) or diversity (e.g., choosing to examine some fast and some slow cheetahs). The second set of experiments will test two possible accounts of the developmental and cognitive mechanisms underlying observed age-related changes. The third set of studies will develop and test new strategies for facilitating efficient biological and scientific reasoning in educational contexts. Thus, in addition to addressing key theoretical questions in cognitive and developmental psychology, this project will also have immediate implications for education.

该项目将开发新策略，以促进幼儿高效的科学推理。从早期的发展，儿童使用类别来了解他们周围的世界。例如，在学习有关单个动物的知识时，儿童可以将这些信息概括为整个类别，并使用它来指导行为。通过这种方式，如果一个孩子知道某只蜘蛛会咬人，他可能会推断所有的蜘蛛都会咬人，并利用这些信息来避免未来的蜘蛛。这种推理的一个关键挑战是确定有限的证据样本-例如，在特定的一天观察到的特定蜘蛛-是否提供了可能对其他类别成员也是真实的信息。幼儿对证据样本的评估效率往往低于年龄较大的儿童或成人，这可能会阻碍他们的生物，社会和科学推理。这个项目将加强对归纳学习如何以及为什么在童年时期发生变化的基本理解。通过一系列的实验，本研究将揭示儿童推理策略随年龄变化的认知和发展机制。该项目将利用这些知识来设计和测试促进儿童有效推理的新策略。通过制定新的教育战略，与一个主要的非正规教育机构合作，并为本科生和研究生提供培训机会，该项目最大限度地增加了这项研究影响教育实践的机会，使教育工作者、儿童、目前的研究验证了这样一个假设，即年幼的儿童会寻找他们认为最适合某个类别成员的证据样本。就像，而年龄较大的儿童和成年人寻找的样本涵盖了类别中存在的广泛变化。例如，年幼的孩子可能认为鸟类应该相对较小并且会飞，所以当他们寻求有关鸟类的一般信息时，他们可能会选择主要考虑具有这些特征的鸟类，例如知更鸟和蓝知更鸟。相比之下，年龄较大的孩子可能会寻找更多样化的样本，包括知更鸟和企鹅等鸟类。为了通过实验来验证这一假设，孩子们将看到动物的样本，并被要求选择哪些动物对学习整个类别最有帮助。为了绘制儿童策略发展变化的轨迹，第一组研究将检查5至10岁的儿童是否选择了关键属性值最大化的样本（例如，选择检查世界上最快的两只猎豹以了解猎豹）或多样性（例如，选择检查一些快的和一些慢的猎豹）。第二组实验将测试观察到的年龄相关变化的发展和认知机制的两种可能的帐户。第三组研究将开发和测试新的策略，以促进有效的生物和科学推理的教育背景。因此，除了解决认知和发展心理学中的关键理论问题外，该项目还将对教育产生直接影响。

项目成果

Is the most representative skunk the average or the stinkiest? Developmental changes in representations of biological categories

• DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2018.12.004
• 发表时间: 2019-05-01
• 期刊: COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
• 影响因子: 2.6
• 作者: Foster-Hanson, Emily;Rhodes, Marjorie
• 通讯作者: Rhodes, Marjorie

Exploring informal science interventions to promote children's understanding of natural categories

探索非正式的科学干预措施以促进儿童对自然类别的理解

• 发表时间: 2019
• 期刊: Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society
• 作者: Kachergis, G.;Gureckis, T. M.;Rhodes, M.
• 通讯作者: Rhodes, M.

Developmental Changes in Strategies for Gathering Evidence About Biological Kinds

收集生物种类证据策略的发展变化

• DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12837
• 发表时间: 2020
• 期刊: Cognitive Science
• 影响因子: 2.5
• 作者: Foster‐Hanson, Emily;Moty, Kelsey;Cardarelli, Amanda;Ocampo, John Daryl;Rhodes, Marjorie
• 通讯作者: Rhodes, Marjorie