University of Waterloo.
Child Dev. 2021 Mar;92(2):662-671. doi: 10.1111/cdev.13534. Epub 2021 Jan 31.
Children often judge that strange and improbable events are impossible, but the mechanisms behind their reasoning remain unclear. This article (N = 250) provides evidence that young children use a similarity heuristic that compares potential events to similar known events to determine whether events are possible. Experiment 1 shows that 5- to 6-year-olds who hear about improbable events go on to judge that similar improbable events can happen. Experiment 2 shows that 5- to 6-year-olds more often affirm that improbable events can happen if told about related improbable events than if told about unrelated ones. Finally, Experiment 3 shows that 5- to 6-year-olds affirm the possibility of improbable events related to known events, but deny that related impossible events can happen.
儿童常常认为奇怪和不太可能的事件是不可能的，但他们推理背后的机制仍不清楚。本文（N=250）提供的证据表明，年幼的儿童使用相似性启发式，将潜在事件与类似的已知事件进行比较，以确定事件是否可能发生。实验 1 表明，听到不太可能的事件的 5 至 6 岁儿童接着判断类似的不太可能的事件可能发生。实验 2 表明，如果告诉 5 至 6 岁儿童有关不太可能的相关事件，而不是无关事件，他们会更频繁地肯定不太可能的事件会发生。最后，实验 3 表明，5 至 6 岁的儿童肯定与已知事件相关的不太可能事件的可能性，但否认相关的不可能事件会发生。
