Department of Psychology, University ofTexas at Austin, 1 University Station A8000, Austin, TX 78712-0187, USA.
Child Dev. 2010 May-Jun;81(3):929-44. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01443.x.
What events trigger causal explanatory reasoning in young children? Children's explanations could be triggered by either consistent events (suggesting that explanations serve a confirmatory function) or inconsistent events (suggesting that they promote discovery of new information). In 2 studies with preschool children (N = 80), events that were consistent with children's prior knowledge were simultaneously contrasted with events that were inconsistent with prior knowledge, and children were invited to explain either outcome (or both). Results demonstrate that inconsistent outcomes are an especially powerful trigger for children's explanations and that the explanations children provide for inconsistent outcomes refer to internal causal properties, overriding perceptual appearances. In sum, the data provide empirical evidence that inconsistent events motivate children to construct explanations, thereby suggesting that children's explanations function in the service of discovery.
是什么事件引发了幼儿的因果解释推理？儿童的解释可能是由一致的事件（表明解释具有确认功能）或不一致的事件（表明它们促进了新信息的发现）引发的。在两项针对学龄前儿童的研究（N=80）中，同时对比了与儿童先前知识一致的事件和与先前知识不一致的事件，并邀请儿童解释这两种结果（或两者）。结果表明，不一致的结果是儿童解释的特别有力的触发因素，并且儿童对不一致结果的解释涉及内部因果属性，忽略了感知表象。总之，这些数据提供了经验证据，表明不一致的事件促使儿童构建解释，从而表明儿童的解释是为了发现而服务的。
