Children's Acquisition of Counterintuitive Concepts

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的研究考察儿童如何获得反直觉的概念——他们如何学习并开始相信那些违背他们对世界如何运作的直觉的想法。能够整理和有选择地接受某些违反直觉的信息，对儿童获得大量文化传播的思想有着深远的影响，从科学到精神，包括与儿童健康有关的思想。例如，第一次学习生物进化的孩子必须放弃物种不会在世代之间发生变化的想法，而要让孩子理解日心说，他们必须放弃自己的第一手感知（每天，太阳似乎都在绕着地球转）。此外，为了让孩子们理解细菌和病毒的重要性，他们必须相信存在肉眼无法感知的强大实体。因此，反直觉的概念在许多思想领域中起着关键作用。尽管最近的研究已经调查了儿童是如何表达违反直觉的概念的，以及儿童在多大程度上信任他人提供的信息，但这两项研究尚未合并。拟议的实验研究旨在解决关于儿童如何开始相信反直觉概念的三个具体目标：目标1：评估环境的各个方面-包括即时学习环境和更广泛的文化环境-如何影响儿童接受反直觉想法的意愿。目标2：确定儿童在学习反直觉信息时信任的人类型；特别是，检查儿童是否以及何时考虑举报人的特征和他们的专业知识。目标3：确定影响儿童接受反直觉信息的意愿的信息本身的质量（例如，解释深度）。为了实现这些目标，参加波士顿地区学校和博物馆的儿童（4- 8岁）将参与一些任务，在这些任务中，他们将从不同类型的人和不同的环境中学习反直觉的信息。研究结果有望为基础科学和儿童的正规和非正规教育做出贡献。结果将为正式环境（如课堂）和非正式环境（如科学博物馆和教育媒体）的科学教育研究提供信息和启发。调查结果还将为有关儿童精神和宗教信仰中反直觉概念的传播、普及和发展的研究提供信息，这些信仰有助于产生意义感和精神幸福感。此外，这些结果对儿童的身体健康也有影响——了解如何最好地向儿童传达违反直觉的想法，教育者和家长可以更好地向儿童传授重要的健康相关实体，如细菌和病毒。然后，干预研究可以利用被确定为最能促进儿童获得和接受反直觉概念的因素。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed studies examine how children acquire counterintuitive concepts - how they learn and come to believe in ideas that defy their intuitions about how the world works. Being able to sort through and selectively accept certain counterintuitive information has profound implications for children's acquisition of a host of culturally-transmitted ideas, ranging from the scientific to the spiritual, including ideas relevant to children's health. For example, children who are first learning about biological evolution must override their idea that species do not change across generations, and for children to understand heliocentrism, they must override their first-hand perceptions (every day, the sun appears to revolve around the earth). Moreover, for children to understand the importance of bacteria and viruses, they must believe that powerful entities exist that cannot be perceived with the naked eye. Thus, counterintuitive concepts play pivotal roles in many domains of thought. Though recent research has examined how children represent counterintuitive concepts, and how much children trust information that others provide, these two lines of research have yet to be merged. The proposed experimental studies are designed to address three specific aims with regard to how children come to believe counterintuitive concepts: Aim 1: Assess how various aspects of the context--including the immediate learning context and the broader cultural context--influence children's willingness to accept counterintuitive ideas. Aim 2: Determine what types of people children trust when learning counterintuitive information; in particular, examine whether and when children consider informants' traits and their expertise Aim 3: Identify qualities of the information itself (e.g., explanatory depth) that affect children's willingness to accept the counterintuitive information as true. To address these aims, children (4- to 8-year-olds) attending schools and museums in the Boston area will engage in tasks in which they learn counterintuitive information from different types of people and in different contexts. Results promise to contribute both to basic science and to children's formal and informal education. Results will inform and inspire research on science education in both formal settings (i.e., the classroom) and informal settings (e.g., science museums and educational media). Results will also inform research on the transmission, pervasiveness, and development of counterintuitive concepts embedded in children's spiritual and religious beliefs - beliefs that can contribute to a sense of meaning and mental well- being. Moreover, these results have implications for children's physical health - understanding how best to convey counterintuitive ideas to children, educators and parents can better teach children about important health-related entities, such as bacteria and viruses. Intervention studies can then capitalize upon the factors that are identified as best promoting children's acquisition and acceptance of counterintuitive concepts. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed studies are designed to examine how children learn and come to accept counterintuitive concepts, including scientific and health-related concepts. Findings from this research would have important implications for children's physical health-understanding how best to convey counterintuitive ideas to children; educators and parents can better teach children about important health-related entities, such as bacteria and viruses. Findings will appeal to several audiences, including teachers who introduce counterintuitive scientific concepts in the classroom, individuals involved in designing science museum exhibitions, individuals involved in creating educational media (TV shows, videos, and computer games), as well as parents interested in learning how best to introduce their children to counterintuitive concepts.