Reasoning about object categories and properties during early childhood

幼儿时期对物体类别和属性的推理

• 批准号: 194530-2011
• 负责人: Graham, Susan
• 金额: $ 4.41万
• 依托单位: University of Calgary
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2015-01-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=569796
• 关键词: Reasoning; about; object; categories; properties

Induction is an important part of our everyday reasoning, allowing us to generalize beyond what is known to new instances and situations. My research focuses on the emergence of category-based inductive reasoning during the infancy and preschool years. Category-based induction typically involves the following line of reasoning: first, observing that X has the property Y (e.g., a robin can fly); second, deciding that X and Z are the same kind of thing (e.g., a robin and a sparrow are both birds); and third, inferring that Z also has the property Y (e.g., therefore a sparrow can fly). The ability to reason that members of the same category may also share properties allows children to make sense of the great diversity of objects and entities in their environment and leads to cognitive efficiency and the opportunity to benefit from past experiences. The long-term objective of my research program is to characterize the development and nature of inductive reasoning during early childhood, with the ultimate goal of developing a model that captures infants' and preschoolers' inferences about novel categories and properties. During this granting period, we will conduct a series of studies addressing the following research questions: 1) when does category-based inductive reasoning emerge during infancy? 2) what factors influence infants' willingness to generalize novel properties of novel kinds? and 3) how does language help preschoolers determine which properties of an object should be generalized and which should not? Together, the results of these studies will reveal when and how infants and preschoolers develop this very important cognitive skill.

归纳法是我们日常推理的重要组成部分，它使我们能够概括出新实例和情况之外的已知内容。我的研究重点是婴儿期和学龄前阶段基于类别的归纳推理的出现。基于类别的归纳通常涉及以下推理：首先，观察 X 具有属性 Y（例如，知更鸟可以飞）；其次，确定 X 和 Z 是同一类事物（例如，知更鸟和麻雀都是鸟）；第三，推断 Z 也具有属性 Y（例如，因此麻雀可以飞）。推理同一类别的成员也可能共享属性的能力使儿童能够理解其环境中物体和实体的巨大多样性，并导致认知效率和从过去的经验中受益的机会。 我的研究计划的长期目标是描述幼儿期归纳推理的发展和性质，最终目标是开发一个模型来捕获婴儿和学龄前儿童对新类别和属性的推论。在此资助期间，我们将进行一系列研究，解决以下研究问题：1）基于类别的归纳推理在婴儿期何时出现？ 2）哪些因素影响婴儿概括新奇事物的新特性的意愿？ 3）语言如何帮助学龄前儿童确定物体的哪些属性应该被概括，哪些不应该被概括？这些研究的结果将共同揭示婴儿和学龄前儿童何时以及如何发展这种非常重要的认知技能。