CONCEPTS AND THEORIES IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

描述：孩子们是如何组织他们对世界的知识的？ 最近，对概念的处理发生了转变，从 传统的观点认为，概念可以通过肤浅的 特征，到将概念视为嵌入常识的理论观点 解释性框架。研究发现，儿童的概念与 理论尤其引人注目，因为它与以前广泛存在的 对儿童概念的公认观点，认为它在感知上受到了约束。相比之下， 学龄前儿童希望类别成员有一些不明显的相似之处，甚至 在面对显著的知觉差异时，判断不可见 内部部分对身份和功能特别关键 一件物品。在某种意义上，非常年幼的孩子的行为就像是一个类别的成员 分享一种潜在的本质。然而，人们对以下方面知之甚少： 4岁以下的本质主义信仰的发展历程；语言的作用 向儿童传播本质主义的游戏；有什么影响 本质主义有因果推理；或者如何调和本质主义与 传统的儿童观点认为，儿童关注的是突出的外表。这个 建议的研究使用自然主义的语言分析和实验 对2至10岁儿童进行的研究旨在解决这些问题。 具体地说，该提案有三个目标：1)审查本质主义 儿童(2-4岁)用自然语言表达信仰，以及 本质主义的自然语言表达是如何被解释的 孩子们。自然语言表达的研究将揭示这一范围 关于发展早期的本质主义信仰的；对自然的研究 语言解释将揭示一种机制，即本质主义信念 被传播；2)检查发育过程中的合并 不明显的特征(原因、本体论和内部属性) 儿童分类；3)调和本质主义和传统 将儿童视为关注世界感性方面的观点，作者 澄清导致不同绩效的条件。 这项工作将使研究人员超越简单的模型，即假设 发展上的二分法转变，以建立更微妙和更知情的 对导致业绩灵活性的条件的理解-- 以及为什么。总而言之，这些研究将提供汇聚和精确的 关于概念、语言和理论之间联系的证据 在童年早期就开始建造。

DESCRIPTION: How do children organize their knowledge about the world? Recently there has been a shift in the treatment of concepts, from traditional views assuming that concepts can be characterized by superficial features, to theory views treating concepts as embedded in common-sense explanatory frameworks. The finding that children's concepts are tied to theories is especially striking, as it runs counter to a previously widely accepted view of children's concepts as perceptually bound. In contrast, preschoolers expect category members to share nonobvious similarities, even in the face of salient perceptual dissimilarities, and judge non-visible internal parts to be especially crucial to the identity and functioning of an item. In a sense, very young children acts as if members of a category share an underlying essence. However, little is known regarding: the developmental course if essentialist beliefs below age 4; what role language plays in transmitting essentialism to children; what implications essentialism has for causal reasoning; or how to reconcile essentialism with traditional views of children as focused on salient appearances. The proposed research uses naturalistic language analyses and experimental studies with children 2 to 10 years of age to address these questions. Specifically, the proposal has three aims: 1) To examine how essentialist beliefs are expressed in natural language by children (age 2-4 years), and how natural language expressions of essentialism are interpreted by children. The studies of natural language expression will reveal the scope of essentialist beliefs early in development; the studies of natural language interpretation will reveal a mechanism whereby essentialist beliefs are transmitted; 2) To examine the developmental incorporation of non-obvious features (causes, ontologies, and internal properties) into children's categories; and 3) To reconcile essentialism with the traditional view of children as focused on perceptual aspects of the world, by clarifying the conditions that lead to different profiles of performance. This work will allow researchers to go beyond simple models that posit dichotomous shifts over development, to build more subtle and informed understandings of the conditions that lead to flexibility in performance -- and why. Altogether, these studies will provide converging and precise evidence regarding the links among concepts, language, and theory construction in early childhood.