Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 43 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, 2121 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2020 Jul 20;375(1803):20190503. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0503. Epub 2020 Jun 1.
We apply a new quantitative method for investigating how children's exploration changes across age in order to gain insight into how exploration unfolds over the course of a human life from a life-history perspective. In this study, different facets of exploratory play were quantified using a novel touchscreen environment across a large sample and wide age range of children in the USA ( = 105, ages = 1 year and 10 months to 12 years and 2 months). In contrast with previous theories that have suggested humans transition from more exploratory to less throughout maturation, we see children transition from less broadly exploratory as toddlers to more efficient and broad as adolescents. Our data cast doubt on the picture of human life history as involving a linear transition from more curious in early childhood to less curious with age. Instead, exploration appears to become more elaborate throughout human childhood. This article is part of the theme issue 'Life history and learning: how childhood, caregiving and old age shape cognition and culture in humans and other animals'.
我们应用一种新的定量方法来研究儿童的探索行为如何随年龄变化，以期从生命史的角度深入了解人类在一生中的探索是如何展开的。在这项研究中，我们使用一种新颖的触摸屏环境，对来自美国的大样本和广泛年龄段的儿童的探索性游戏的不同方面进行了量化（n=105，年龄为 1 岁 10 个月至 12 岁 2 个月）。与之前的理论相反，这些理论认为人类在成熟过程中从更多的探索转变为更少的探索，我们发现儿童从幼儿期的探索范围较窄转变为青少年期的探索效率更高、范围更广。我们的数据对人类生命史的描述提出了质疑，即人类从童年早期的好奇心更强到随着年龄的增长好奇心更弱的线性转变。相反，探索似乎在整个儿童时期变得更加复杂。本文是主题为“生命史与学习：童年、养育和老年如何塑造人类和其他动物的认知和文化”的特刊的一部分。
