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: 6368465
• 负责人: DEBORAH A KELEMEN
• 金额: $ 6.8万
• 依托单位: BOSTON UNIVERSITY (CHARLES RIVER CAMPUS)
• 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 2003-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6368465
• 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.

该项目涉及儿童将物体视为“为某种功能而设计”的目的论倾向的发展。 对于成年人来说，目的论假设为解释和推断人工制品（例如椅子）和生物结构（例如眼睛）提供了关键基础（Dennett，1987）。 然而，之前的研究表明，与成年人不同，幼儿也会将非生命的自然物体（例如岩石）视为有特定用途的物体。 当前提案的主要目标是通过研究 3 至 6 岁儿童对人工制品的设计、功能和身份之间关系概念的发展进程，了解为什么儿童将功能过度归因于非生物自然种类。 关注工件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实例，因为它们的出现完全是由设计者实现某些目标的意图来解释的。 其次，关于为什么孩子们用目的论术语解释岩石等实体的属性的一个假设是，在缺乏替代解释的情况下，他们将它们视为有意设计的准人工制品（Kelemen，1998；也是 Piaget，1929）。 拟议的研究旨在利用各种实验方法和扩大的年龄范围来复制、扩展和澄清先前关于儿童和成人目的论思想的工作。 一组研究使用行为主动方法来检查儿童是否认为自己的意图是修复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颖文物的起源和当前使用的信息，以研究其对儿童对该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容易陷入“功能固定”这一经典心理现象的程度。 使用这些方法来了解儿童对人工制品的目的论信念的状态，将为儿童关于人造世界和自然世界的直觉和科学理论的形成和发展提供所需的见解。

项目成果

British and American children's preferences for teleo-functional explanations of the natural world.

英国和美国儿童对自然世界的远程功能解释的偏好。

• DOI: 10.1016/s0010-0277(03)00024-6
• 发表时间: 2003
• 期刊: Cognition
• 影响因子: 3.4
• 作者: Kelemen,Deborah