Concepts and Theories in Human Development

这一建议为儿童本质主义推理的研究开辟了两个新的方向。本质主义是 认为某些类别具有决定身份并对其负责的潜在现实的观点 类别成员之间的共性。本质主义被认为是一种早期的认知偏见(Gelman， 2003年)。幼儿的概念反映了对本质主义的深切承诺，这导致孩子们去看 在许多方面超越明显的融合：当学习单词时，将知识概括到新的类别 成员，思考先天与后天的作用，并构建因果解释。这 因此，框架反对将儿童视为具体的或专注于显而易见的标准观点 声称孩子们有一种早期的、强大的倾向，去寻找不明显的特征。本质主义也 与儿童完全基于联想学习建立世界知识的说法背道而驰 策略，相反，辩称儿童的概念植根于丰富的民间理论中。 这一相互竞争的更新建立在过去工作的基础上，以实现两个目标。第1部分考察了语言是如何 作为一种在学龄前儿童中构建和传播本质主义信念的机制。 通用名词短语(例如，蝙蝠在夜间飞行)是在《自然》中传达本质主义概念的重要手段 语言：父母经常输入不同的语言，年轻人很容易学会 儿童，被儿童适当地理解，并被保留在长期记忆中。深入了解 培训研究将在不同的措辞条件下向幼儿传授新的概念，以 用图表表示泛型和标签对本质论者推理的影响。本节还将研究 不同输入语言对儿童记忆和学习新信息的影响--S最后， 本节中的研究将测试关于学习泛型的过程的相互竞争的主张，以及 语言影响分类和相似性判断的机制。第2部分研究一个关键字 本质主义的假设性发展基础：关注对象的历史轨迹，如 体现在起源、所有权和真实性的概念中。建议进行一系列研究，以调查 这些核心概念在儿童从蹒跚学步到小学的发展。这一理论 预测学龄前儿童将对历史道路表现出强烈的敏感性，这样的判断将成立 即使当控制对象的物质特征时，以及当物品的合意性与 历史轨迹。此外，预计年幼的孩子会判断出起源和所有权传递的特殊 虽然这一信念的范围也预计会随着年龄的增长而扩大。 总而言之，这31项研究将提供关于以下各项之间联系的一致和准确的证据 儿童早期的概念、语言和理论构建，使用自然语言分析和 对2至10岁的儿童进行实验研究。

This proposal launches two new directions in the study of essentialist reasoning in children. Essentialism is the idea that certain categories have an underlying reality that determines identity and is responsible for commonalities among category members. Essentialism is argued to be an early cognitive bias (Gelman, 2003). Young children's concepts reflect a deep commitment to essentialism, which leads children to look beyond the obvious in many converging ways: when learning words, generalizing knowledge to new category members, contemplating the role of nature versus nurture, and constructing causal explanations. This framework thus argues against the standard view of children as concrete or focused on the obvious, instead claiming that children have an early, powerful tendency to search for non-obvious features. Essentialism also runs counter to claims that children build up their knowledge of the world wholly based on associative learning strategies, arguing instead that children's concepts are embedded in rich folk theories. This competing renewal builds on past work to address two aims. Part 1 examines how language serves as a mechanism for constructing and transmitting essentialist beliefs in preschool-aged children. Generic noun phrases (e.g., Bats fly at night) are a vital means of conveying essentialist concepts in natural language: they are frequent in parental input across widely distinct languages, are readily learned by young children, are understood appropriately by young children, and are retained in long-term memory. An in-depth training study is proposed that will teach young children a new concept under varied wording conditions, to chart the effects of generics and labeling on essentialist reasoning. This section will also examine the implications of different input language for children¿s memory for and learning of new information. Finally, studies in this section will test competing claims regarding the process by which generics are learned, and the mechanisms by which language affects categorization and similarity judgments. Part 2 examines one key hypothesized developmental underpinning of essentialism: attention to the historical path of objects, as manifest in concepts of origins, ownership, and authenticity. A series of studies is proposed to investigate the development of these core concepts in children from toddler age through elementary school. The theory predicts that preschool children will display keen sensitivity to historical path, and that such judgments will hold even when controlling for material features of objects, and when item desirability is placed in conflict with historical path. Furthermore, young children are predicted to judge that origins and ownership transmit special value to objects, although the scope of this belief is also predicted to broaden with age. Altogether, these 31 studies will provide converging and precise evidence regarding the links among concepts, language, and theory construction in early childhood, using naturalistic language analyses and experimental studies with children 2 to 10 years of age.