Acta Psychologica Sinica


Vol. 36 No. 5 , Pages 550 - 557 , 2004

Effect of Rule Dimensions and Reasoning Direction on Children’s Causal Reasoning (Article written in Chinese)

LI Hong, ZHENG Chijun, & GAO Xuemei

Abstract

This experiment studied the development of causal reasoning in 66 3.5- to 4. 5-year-olds using a ramp apparatus with two input holes and two output holes (Frye et al., 1995). Results revealed that (1) children performed better on cause-effect inferences than on effect-cause inferences; (2) there was an effect of rule complexity such that uni-dimensional causal inferences were easier than bi-dimensional inferences which, in turn, were easier than tri-dimensional causal inferences; and (3) children’s causal reasoning develops rapidly between the ages of age of 3.5 to 4 years.

Keywords: causal reasoning; rule dimensions; reasoning directions; cognitive development

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