儿童早期因果推理的实验研究

【作者】 郑持军；

【导师】 李红；

【作者基本信息】 西南师范大学 ， 发展与教育心理学， 2001， 硕士

【摘要】 因果认知是认识客观世界的核心和基础，儿童因果认知的发展越来越受到心理学家的重视，积累了大量的研究成果。70年代，一些研究者开始采用实验法、设置人为因果任务来探讨儿童因果推理能力的发展，但是，却少有人关注到规则的维度以及推理方向等对儿童因果推理的影响。 基于此，本研究改进了Frye等的“二进二出”装置，设置了反应方式、推理方向、规则维度三个因素，采用个别实验法，研究了60名3.5—4.5岁儿童因果推理能力的发展，获得了以下结论： 1、研究发现，3.5—4岁左右是儿童因果推理能力发展的快速期，在这一阶段，年龄效应显著，儿童的因果推理能力在这一阶段得到了飞速的发展，到4.5岁左右，大部分儿童已具备因果推理能力； 2、在本实验中没有发现反应方式对儿童因果推理成绩的影响，儿童在熟悉规则的前提下进入实验，采用动手操作与言语报告的两种反应方式在成绩上没有发现显著的差异性； 3、推理方向会影响儿童的因果推理成绩，儿童在不同方向的因果推理任务上存在显著差异性。儿童完成顺向的因→果推理任务成绩要好于逆向的果→因推理。随着年龄增加，差异逐渐缩小，到了4.5岁，两类任务上的正确率都已经超过75％，反映4.5岁的儿童已经基本上具有了思维的可逆性，能够进行逆向的果→因推理。 4、规则维度也是影响儿童因果推理成绩的重要因素，不同维度下儿童的推理成绩有极显著的差异性。一维的因果推理更容易，三维合取规则的因果推理任务更难。 5、当儿童的因果推理遇到困难时，儿童就会表现出按照经验判断的“竖直偏见”。这种现象有时发生在不同的儿童身上，有时发生在同一儿童的不同任务中。反应出儿童在因果推理中，既可以基于规则又可以基于经验进行。更多还原

【Abstract】 Causal cognition is the core and foundation for getting to know and understanding theobjective world. Children’s causal cognition has received increasingly more and moreattention from psychologists with massive research results accumulated in this field. In theI 970s,some researchers sought to analyze the development of children’s causal inferenceability by employing empirical methods and prescribing artificial causal inference tasks.However, few researchers were aware of the influence exerted on children’s causal inferenceby rule dimensions and inference directions.Therefore, this research has designed response types, inference directions, and ruledimensions by "Two-input to two-output" equipment. This study has studied 66 3.5 to4.5-year olds-children in terms of the development of their inference ability. Thus, thefollowing conclusions have been drawn:1.The age range from 3.5 to 4 years is a rapid period for the development of children’scausal inference ability. At this stage , the age shows an obvious effect on the developmentand children’s inference ability undergoes a rapid development. At about the age of 4.5,mostchildren possess causal inference ability;2.In the experiment, no influence on children’s performance in causal inference exertedby response type has been discovered. The experiment starts when children are familiar withthe rule of the experiment, and the performances demonstrate no significant differences withthe two response types of manual control and verbal report.3.Inference direction can affect children’s causal inference performance with childrendemonstrating significant differences in causal inference tasks of different directions.Children achieve better performance in carrying out cause-to-effect inference tasks than ineffect-to-cause inference tasks. The performance discrepancies decrease gradually withchildren’s age range going upward. At the age of 4.5 years old, children’s exactness rate inperforming the two types of tasks is over 75%, which shows that children at age 4.5 havenearly mastered the reversibility of thinking and are able to perform backward inference.4.Rule dimension is also an important factor that affects children’s performance incausal inference. Children demonstrate significant differences among their performances withdifferent dimensions. One-dimension causal inference is easier while inference withthree-dimension conjunctive rule poses more difficulties.5.When children encounter difficulties in causal inference, they tend to demonstrate a"vertical bias" originating from their empirical judgment. This phenomenon can be observedboth in different children and in the same children performing different tasks. It suggests thatchildren’s causal inference could be both rule-based and experience-based.更多还原