Atance Cristina M, Louw Alyssa, Clayton Nicola S
School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada.
School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario K1N 6N5, Canada.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2015 Jan;129:98-109. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.09.001. Epub 2014 Oct 3.
We explored 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds' capacity to draw on a past experience that entailed the lack of a particular resource (in this case, toys) in one room, but not in another, to make an adaptive choice (i.e., place toys in the room where there were none) for a subsequent visit to the two rooms. Children's memory for which room had toys and which room did not was explicitly assessed. Children were then queried about where they should place a new set of toys for their next visit to the rooms. In Experiment 1, where children were asked about the "distant" future, 4- and 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, placed the toys in the "no-toy" room at a rate significantly higher than chance. In Experiment 2, where children were asked about the "immediate" future, correct responses of 3-year-olds were still no different from chance, those of 5-year-olds were above chance, and those of 4-year-olds trended in this direction. Our discussion centers on the importance of assessing both "memory" and "foresight" on tasks purported to assess children's episodic foresight, the role of "temporal distance" on children's future-oriented behavior, and implications for future research.
我们探究了3岁、4岁和5岁儿童利用过去经历的能力，这种经历涉及一个房间缺少某种特定资源（在本研究中为玩具）而另一个房间不缺，以便为后续再次进入这两个房间做出适应性选择（即把玩具放在没有玩具的房间）。我们明确评估了儿童对哪个房间有玩具、哪个房间没有玩具的记忆。然后询问儿童，下次进入这两个房间时应该把一套新玩具放在哪里。在实验1中，当询问儿童“遥远”未来的情况时，4岁和5岁儿童会把玩具放在“没有玩具”的房间，放置比例显著高于随机水平，而3岁儿童则不然。在实验2中，当询问儿童“近期”未来的情况时，3岁儿童的正确反应仍与随机水平无异，5岁儿童的反应高于随机水平，4岁儿童的反应也有这个趋势。我们的讨论集中在以下方面：在旨在评估儿童情景前瞻能力的任务中评估“记忆”和“前瞻”的重要性、“时间距离”对儿童面向未来行为的作用，以及对未来研究的启示。
