Reasoning about object categories and properties during early childhood

归纳是我们日常推理的重要组成部分，它使我们能够将已知的东西推广到新的实例和情况。我的研究集中在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路线：首先，观察X具有属性Y（例如，知更鸟会飞）;第二，决定X和Z是同一种事物（例如，知更鸟和麻雀都是鸟）;以及第三，推断Z也具有属性Y（例如，所以麻雀会飞）。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的物体和实体的巨大多样性，并导致认知效率和从过去经验中受益的机会。我的研究计划的长期目标是描述儿童早期归纳推理的发展和性质，最终目标是开发一个模型，捕捉婴儿和学龄前儿童对新类别和属性的推断。在此期间，我们将进行一系列的研究，解决以下研究问题：1）基于类别的归纳推理何时出现在婴儿期？2)什么因素影响婴儿对新奇事物的概括意愿？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？总之，这些研究的结果将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。

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.