School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia.
PLoS One. 2018 Sep 4;13(9):e0202606. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0202606. eCollection 2018.
The current study used a minimalist paradigm to examine young children's capacity to imagine and prepare for certain and uncertain immediate future outcomes. In a counterbalanced order, 2.5-year-old children (N = 32) completed twelve trials each of two tasks: (1) the forked tube task, which assessed their ability to cover two possible tube exits to ensure they would catch a single target with an uncertain future trajectory, and (2) the double tube task, which assessed their ability to cover two separate tube exits to ensure they would catch two targets with certain future trajectories. Even though the optimal preparatory action was the same across both tasks, children were much more likely to spontaneously and consistently demonstrate this action in the double tube task than the forked tube task. Children's responses were unaffected by the number of targets seen in the demonstration phase, and instead appeared to be based on the particular contingencies of each apparatus. These results are consistent with the possibility that young children specifically struggle to imagine and prepare for mutually exclusive versions of uncertain future events.
本研究采用极简主义范式来考察幼儿想象和为确定和不确定的未来结果做准备的能力。2.5 岁的儿童（N=32）以平衡的顺序完成了两个任务各 12 个试验：（1）分叉管任务，评估他们覆盖两个可能的管出口的能力，以确保他们可以用不确定未来轨迹的单个目标；（2）双管任务，评估他们覆盖两个单独的管出口的能力，以确保他们可以用确定未来轨迹的两个目标。尽管两种任务的最佳预备动作是相同的，但儿童在双管任务中更有可能自发且一致地表现出这种动作，而在分叉管任务中则不然。儿童的反应不受演示阶段中看到的目标数量的影响，而是似乎基于每个装置的特定偶然性。这些结果与幼儿特别难以想象和为不确定未来事件的互斥版本做准备的可能性一致。
