Department of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University, 50 Shakespeare Street, Nottingham, NG1 4FQ, UK.
Learn Behav. 2021 Jun;49(2):204-221. doi: 10.3758/s13420-020-00440-7.
Transitive Inference (deduce B > D from B > C and C > D) can help us to understand other areas of sociocognitive development. Across three experiments, learning, memory, and the validity of two transitive paradigms were investigated. In Experiment 1 (N = 121), 7-year-olds completed a three-term nontraining task or a five-term task requiring extensive-training. Performance was superior on the three-term task. Experiment 2 presented 5-10-year-olds with a new five-term task, increasing learning opportunities without lengthening training (N = 71). Inferences improved, suggesting children can learn five-term series rapidly. Regarding memory, the minor (CD) premise was the best predictor of BD-inferential performance in both task-types. However, tasks exhibited different profiles according to associations between the major (BC) premise and BD inference, correlations between the premises, and the role of age. Experiment 3 (N = 227) helped rule out the possible objection that the above findings simply stemmed from three-term tasks with real objects being easier to solve than computer-tasks. It also confirmed that, unlike for five-term task (Experiments 1 & 2), inferences on three-term tasks improve with age, whether the age range is wide (Experiment 3) or narrow (Experiment 2). I conclude that the tasks indexed different routes within a dual-process conception of transitive reasoning: The five-term tasks indexes Type 1 (associative) processing, and the three-term task indexes Type 2 (analytic) processing. As well as demonstrating that both tasks are perfectly valid, these findings open up opportunities to use transitive tasks for educability, to investigate the role of transitivity in other domains of reasoning, and potentially to benefit the lived experiences of persons with developmental issues.
传递推理（从 B>C 和 C>D 推断出 B>D）可以帮助我们理解社会认知发展的其他领域。通过三个实验，研究了学习、记忆以及两种传递推理范式的有效性。在实验 1（N=121）中，7 岁儿童完成了一个三术语非训练任务或一个需要广泛训练的五术语任务。在三术语任务上的表现更好。实验 2 向 5-10 岁儿童呈现了一个新的五术语任务，增加了学习机会而没有延长训练（N=71）。推理能力有所提高，表明儿童可以快速学习五术语系列。关于记忆，次要（CD）前提是两种任务类型中 BD 推理表现的最佳预测因素。然而，根据主要（BC）前提和 BD 推理之间的关联、前提之间的相关性以及年龄的作用，任务表现出不同的特征。实验 3（N=227）有助于排除上述发现仅仅源于具有真实物体的三术语任务比计算机任务更容易解决的可能性。它还证实，与五术语任务（实验 1 和 2）不同，三术语任务的推理能力会随着年龄的增长而提高，无论年龄范围是宽（实验 3）还是窄（实验 2）。我得出的结论是，这些任务在传递推理的双过程概念中索引了不同的途径：五术语任务索引了 1 型（联想）处理，而三术语任务索引了 2 型（分析）处理。这些发现不仅证明了两种任务都是完全有效的，还为使用传递任务进行可教育性研究、研究传递在其他推理领域中的作用以及为具有发育问题的人的生活经历提供潜在的益处开辟了机会。
