Heyman Gail D, Phillips Ann T, Gelman Susan A
University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
Cognition. 2003 Aug;89(1):43-61. doi: 10.1016/s0010-0277(03)00072-6.
Reasoning about seven physics principles within and across ontological kinds was examined among 188 5- and 7-year-olds and 59 adults. Individuals in all age groups tended to appropriately generalize what they learned across ontological kinds. However, children also showed sensitivity to ontological kind in their projections: when learning principles with reference to people they were more likely to assume that the principles apply to another person than to an inanimate object, and when learning with reference to an inanimate object they were more likely to assume that the principles apply to another inanimate object than to a person. Five-year-olds, but not 7-year-olds, projected concepts learned about people to a greater extent than principles learned about inanimate objects, closely paralleling the findings of Carey for the biological domain (Carey, S. (1985). Conceptual change in childhood. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Results from a separate sample of 22 5-year-olds suggest that the primary findings cannot be explained by response perseveration. The present findings indicate that children understand physics principles that apply to both animate and inanimate objects, but distinguish between these ontological kinds.
研究人员对188名5岁和7岁儿童以及59名成年人在本体类别内部和之间对七条物理原理的推理进行了考察。所有年龄组的个体都倾向于在本体类别之间恰当地推广他们所学的知识。然而，儿童在推理中也表现出对本体类别的敏感性：当参照人学习原理时，他们更有可能认为这些原理适用于另一个人而不是无生命物体；当参照无生命物体学习时，他们更有可能认为这些原理适用于另一个无生命物体而不是人。5岁儿童，而非7岁儿童，将关于人的概念推广的程度大于关于无生命物体的原理，这与凯里在生物领域的研究结果非常相似（凯里，S.（1985年）。童年期的概念转变。马萨诸塞州剑桥：麻省理工学院出版社）。来自22名5岁儿童的单独样本的结果表明，主要发现不能用反应 perseveration 来解释。目前的研究结果表明，儿童理解适用于有生命和无生命物体的物理原理，但能区分这些本体类别。
