Young Children's Causal Learning from Probabilistic Social and Physical Displays

DRL：1251702摘要本项目的目的是通过对幼儿的创新实验来探索幼儿科学推理的起源。在非正式的环境中学习概率因果关系。孩子们呢？从观察概率因果结果中学习的能力是一个生态有效的，但未充分研究的问题，对STEM教育理论和实践有影响。在婴儿期和幼儿期发生的许多因果学习都是通过观察别人来进行的。的行动。至关重要的是，在非正式的、非实验室的环境中学习原因意味着观察者经常需要从概率证据中学习因果关系？100%确定地观察不发生的关系或模式。本研究有三个目的：确定幼儿是否从概率证据的观察中学习物理因果关系;调查幼儿是否从概率因果证据的观察中学习社会因果关系;研究观察混杂因果系统的幼儿是否优先将概率结果归因于社会原因的可变性或物理原因的可变性。该项目提出了一系列的五个收敛的实验，使用新建立的方法来检查的发展根源的概率因果推理的儿童年龄小至24个月。在实验1和2中，幼儿将观察到涉及物理对象的概率因果显示。在实验3和4中，孩子们会观察到社会代理人之间的概率因果证据模式？人与人之间的互动？而不是物理对象。在实验5中，儿童将观察到一个混淆的概率因果显示，其中因果关系的概率性质可以归因于执行干预的人或被作用的物理对象。在每一个实验中，依赖性测量是儿童根据他们所观察到的结果，自己采取什么目标导向的行动来实现结果。

DRL: 1251702AbstractThis purpose of this project is to explore the origins of scientific reasoning in early childhood through innovative experiments investigating young children?s learning about probabilistic cause-effect relationships in informal settings. Children?s ability to learn from observing probabilistic causal outcomes is an ecologically valid, but understudied issue with implications for STEM educational theory and practice. Much of the causal learning that takes place in infancy and early childhood is by the observation of other people?s actions. Crucially, learning about causes in informal, non-laboratory settings means that an observer often needs to learn cause-effect relationships from probabilistic evidence?observing relations or patterns that do not occur with 100% certainty. This proposal has three objectives: To establish whether young children learn about physical causal relationships from the observation of probabilistic evidence; To investigate whether young children learn about social causal relationships from the observation of probabilistic causal evidence; To investigate whether young children observing a confounded causal system preferentially attribute probabilistic outcomes to variability in social causes or to variability in physical causes.This project proposes a series of five converging experiments using a newly established methodology to examine the developmental roots of probabilistic causal reasoning in children as young as 24 months of age. In Experiments 1 and 2 young children will observe probabilistic causal displays involving physical objects. In Experiments 3 and 4 children will observe a pattern of probabilistic causal evidence between social agents?people interacting with one another?instead of physical objects. In Experiment 5 children will observe a confounded probabilistic causal display in which the probabilistic nature of the causal relationship could either be attributed to the person performing the intervention or to the physical object being acted upon. In each experiment, the dependent measure is what goal-directed action children take on their own to achieve the outcome based on what they observed.