DEVELOPMENT OF CHILDREN'S TELEOLOGICAL VIEW OF ARTIFACTS

儿童对人工制品的目的论观点的发展

• 批准号: 2884928
• 负责人: DEBORAH A KELEMEN
• 金额: $ 6.64万
• 依托单位: PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY, THE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-08-01 至 2001-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/2884928
• 关键词: attention; behavioral /social science research tag; belief; child psychology; clinical research; creativity; human subject; judgment; middle childhood (6-11); perception; preschool child (1-5)

This project concerns the development of children's teleological tendency to view objects as "designed for a function." For adults, teleological assumptions provide a critical basis for explanation and inference about artifacts, such as chairs, and biological structures, such as eyes, (Dennett, 1987). Previous studies suggest however, that, in contrast to adults, young children also construe non-living natural objects, such as rocks, as designed for a purpose. The major goal of the current proposal is to understand why children over-attribute function to non-biological natural kinds by studying developmental progressions in 3- to 6-year-olds conception of the relationship between the design, function and identity of artifacts. There are several reasons for focusing on artifacts to explore this question. First, for adults, artifacts provide the clearest instance of objects that exist for a function because their occurrence is entirely explained by a designer's intention that they fulfill some goal. Second, one hypothesis as to why children explain the properties of entities such a rocks in teleological terms is that in the absence of alternative accounts, they treat them as intentionally-designed quasi- artifacts (Kelemen, 1998; also Piaget, 1929). The proposed studies aim to replicate, extend, and clarify prior work on children's and adult's teleological thought using a variety of experimental methods and an expanded age range. One set of studies uses behaviorally-active methods to examine whether children view their own intentions as fixing the function and identity of an artifact that they have just designed. A second set of studies manipulates information about the origin and current use of a novel artifact in order to study its influence on children's judgments of the object's identity and function. A final set of studies explores the degree to which young children fall prone to the classic psychological phenomenon of "functional fixedness." Using these methods to understand the status of children's teleological beliefs about artifacts will provide needed insight into the formation and development of children's intuitive and scientific theories about both the artificial and natural world.

这个项目关注的是儿童目的论倾向的发展，他们认为物品是“为一种功能而设计的”。对于成年人来说，目的论假设为解释和推断人工制品(如椅子)和生物结构(如眼睛)提供了一个重要的基础(Dennett，1987)。然而，之前的研究表明，与成年人不同，幼儿也会理解非生物的自然物体，如岩石，因为它们是为某种目的而设计的。本研究的主要目的是通过研究3-6岁儿童对人工制品的设计、功能和特性之间的关系的概念的发展进程，来理解为什么儿童对非生物自然类型的功能过度归因。关注人工制品来探索这个问题有几个原因。首先，对于成年人来说，人工制品提供了为某种功能而存在的对象的最清晰的实例，因为它们的出现完全是由设计师的意图来解释的，即它们实现了某个目标。第二，关于儿童为什么用目的论的术语解释岩石等实体的性质的一个假设是，在没有其他解释的情况下，他们将它们视为故意设计的准人工制品(Keleman，1998；也是Piaget，1929)。拟议的研究旨在复制、扩展和澄清先前关于儿童和成人目的论思维的工作，使用各种实验方法和扩大年龄范围。一组研究使用行为积极的方法来检查儿童是否认为他们自己的意图是固定他们刚刚设计的人工制品的功能和身份。第二组研究操纵有关新文物的起源和当前使用的信息，以研究其对儿童对物体的身份和功能的判断的影响。最后一组研究探讨了幼儿在多大程度上容易陷入“功能固执”这一经典的心理现象。使用这些方法了解儿童对人工制品的目的论信念的状况，将为儿童关于人工世界和自然世界的直觉和科学理论的形成和发展提供必要的洞察力。