Thinking about possibilities: Towards a unified cognitive framework

对可能性的思考是我们成为人类的根本。我们经常想象未来可能发生的事情，并反思过去可能会有不同的结果。该项目旨在建立儿童和非人类灵长类动物思考其他可能性的环境，并解释他们是如何做到的。该项目希望提供认知发展和进化的新知识，并区分简单和复杂的思考可能性的过程。预期的好处包括逐步建立一个统一的认知框架，最终可用来帮助人们更好地推理各种可能性，并使其实现。

Thoughts about possibilities are fundamental to what makes us human. We routinely imagine what might happen in the future and reflect on how the past could have turned out differently. This psychology project aims to establish the circumstances in which children and non-human primates think about alternative possibilities, and to explain how they do it. The project expects to provide new knowledge of cognitive development and evolution, and to distinguish between simple and complex processes for thinking about possibilities. Expected benefits include progress towards a unified cognitive framework that may ultimately be leveraged to help people better reason about possibilities and bring them to fruition.