Domain generality and specificity in children's causal inference about ambiguous data.

Full Abstract

In 5 experiments the authors examined children's understanding of causal mechanisms and their reasoning about base rates across domains of knowledge. Experiment 1 showed that 3-year-olds interpret objects activating a machine differently from a novel agent liking each object; children are more likely to treat the latter as indicating the objects with the causal property possessed an internal property. Experiment 2 suggested that 3-year-olds potentially use this mechanistic knowledge to reason about ambiguous data in terms of base rate information. Experiments 3, 4a, and 4b showed that these inferences are not the result of children being more interested in an agent's desires. Instead, children integrate domain-specific knowledge (i.e., reasoning about an agent vs. a machine) with the nature of that inference within that domain (i.e., reasoning about desires vs. other mental states). The authors suggest that a particular computational approach, based on Bayesian inference, best describes these inferences. This approach offers a description of how children might integrate domain-specific mechanism knowledge into a more general model of causal inference based on observing covariation data among events.

Author information

Author/s: Sobel, David M (DM); Munro, Sarah E (SE);

Affiliation: Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Box 1978, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA. Dave_Sobel(-atsign-)brown.edu

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: Developmental psychology (Dev Psychol), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Mar; vol 45 (issue 2) : pp 511-24

Dates: Created 2009/03/10; Completed 2009/05/11;

PMID: 19271835, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 5/11/2009, IMS Date: 11 May 2009 00:00:00)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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