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Investigating the development of causal inference by studying variability in 2- to 5-year-olds' behavior
This study investigated the development of young children’s causal inference by studying variability in behavior. Two possible sources of variability, strategy use and accuracy in strategy execution, were discriminated and related to age. To this end, a relatively wide range of causal inference tria...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2018
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5880367/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29608583 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195019 |
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author | van Schijndel, Tessa J. P. Huijpen, Kim Visser, Ingmar Raijmakers, Maartje E. J. |
author_facet | van Schijndel, Tessa J. P. Huijpen, Kim Visser, Ingmar Raijmakers, Maartje E. J. |
author_sort | van Schijndel, Tessa J. P. |
collection | PubMed |
description | This study investigated the development of young children’s causal inference by studying variability in behavior. Two possible sources of variability, strategy use and accuracy in strategy execution, were discriminated and related to age. To this end, a relatively wide range of causal inference trials was administered to children of a relatively broad age range: 2- to 5-year-olds. Subsequently, individuals’ response patterns over trials were analyzed with a latent variable technique. The results showed that variability in children’s behavior could largely be explained by strategy use. Three different strategies were distinguished, and tentative interpretations suggest these could possibly be labeled as “rational”, “associative”, and “uncertainty avoidance” strategies. The strategies were found to be related to age, and this age-related strategy use better explained the variability in children’s behavior than age-related increase in accuracy of executing a single strategy. This study can be considered a first step in introducing a new, fruitful approach for investigating the development of causal inference. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5880367 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2018 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-58803672018-04-13 Investigating the development of causal inference by studying variability in 2- to 5-year-olds' behavior van Schijndel, Tessa J. P. Huijpen, Kim Visser, Ingmar Raijmakers, Maartje E. J. PLoS One Research Article This study investigated the development of young children’s causal inference by studying variability in behavior. Two possible sources of variability, strategy use and accuracy in strategy execution, were discriminated and related to age. To this end, a relatively wide range of causal inference trials was administered to children of a relatively broad age range: 2- to 5-year-olds. Subsequently, individuals’ response patterns over trials were analyzed with a latent variable technique. The results showed that variability in children’s behavior could largely be explained by strategy use. Three different strategies were distinguished, and tentative interpretations suggest these could possibly be labeled as “rational”, “associative”, and “uncertainty avoidance” strategies. The strategies were found to be related to age, and this age-related strategy use better explained the variability in children’s behavior than age-related increase in accuracy of executing a single strategy. This study can be considered a first step in introducing a new, fruitful approach for investigating the development of causal inference. Public Library of Science 2018-04-02 /pmc/articles/PMC5880367/ /pubmed/29608583 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195019 Text en © 2018 van Schijndel et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article van Schijndel, Tessa J. P. Huijpen, Kim Visser, Ingmar Raijmakers, Maartje E. J. Investigating the development of causal inference by studying variability in 2- to 5-year-olds' behavior |
title | Investigating the development of causal inference by studying variability in 2- to 5-year-olds' behavior |
title_full | Investigating the development of causal inference by studying variability in 2- to 5-year-olds' behavior |
title_fullStr | Investigating the development of causal inference by studying variability in 2- to 5-year-olds' behavior |
title_full_unstemmed | Investigating the development of causal inference by studying variability in 2- to 5-year-olds' behavior |
title_short | Investigating the development of causal inference by studying variability in 2- to 5-year-olds' behavior |
title_sort | investigating the development of causal inference by studying variability in 2- to 5-year-olds' behavior |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5880367/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29608583 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195019 |
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