Preschoolers prefer to learn causal information

Frontiers in Psychology
Aubry L Alvarez, Amy E Booth

Abstract

Young children, in general, appear to have a strong drive to explore the environment in ways that reveal its underlying causal structure. But are they really attuned specifically to casual information in this quest for understanding, or do they show equal interest in other types of non-obvious information about the world? To answer this question, we introduced 20 three-year-old children to two puppets who were anxious to tell the child about a set of novel artifacts and animals. One puppet consistently described causal properties of the items while the other puppet consistently described carefully matched non-causal properties of the same items. After a familiarization period in which children learned which type of information to expect from each informant, children were given the opportunity to choose which they wanted to hear describe each of eight pictured test items. On average, children chose to hear from the informant that provided causal descriptions on 72% of the trials. This preference for causal information has important implications for explaining the role of conceptual information in supporting early learning and may suggest means for maximizing interest and motivation in young children.

References

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May 19, 2004·Psychological Science·Deborah G Kemler NelsonMorghan B Holt
Sep 28, 2004·Psychological Science·Melissa A KoenigPaul L Harris
Jun 15, 2006·Psychological Science·Marissa L GreifFranky Gutierrez
Apr 27, 2007·Cognition·Amy E Booth
Jul 4, 2007·Developmental Psychology·Laura E Schulz, Elizabeth Baraff Bonawitz
Jun 27, 2008·Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience·Karuna SubramaniamMark Jung-Beeman
Apr 18, 2009·Developmental Science·Kathleen Corriveau, Paul L Harris
Jul 28, 2009·Child Development·Amy E Booth
May 5, 2010·Child Development·David M Sobel, Kathleen H Corriveau
Jun 25, 2010·Child Development·Cristine H LegareHenry M Wellman
Apr 17, 2013·Developmental Science·Elena MascalzoniFrancesca Simion

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Citations

Apr 25, 2019·Perspectives on Psychological Science : a Journal of the Association for Psychological Science·Deborah Kelemen
May 1, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Margaret ShavlikAmy E Booth
Aug 14, 2020·Journal of Experimental Child Psychology·Richard E AhlFrank C Keil

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