University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Canada.
Boston University, Boston, USA.
Cognition. 2021 Jun;211:104635. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104635. Epub 2021 Mar 10.
Acquiring the counterintuitive logic of how the mechanism of natural selection (NS) leads to the evolution of new species (speciation) represents a paradigm case of conceptual change. Given this, we examined children's intuitive preconceptions about speciation and their ability to construct, generalize, and retain an accurate understanding of the theory. We did so by conducting two multi-age, multi-session, and multi-measure intervention studies that assessed children's understanding of natural selection 4 times over three months using extended interviews. We also examined the role of Executive Function skills (EF) in these conceptual change processes. Distinctively, we explored whether-consistent with conceptual co-existence accounts-EF not only supports children's initial construction of a counterintuitive theory but also plays an ongoing role in the online reasoning of successful learners. Across two studies, North American children in Grades 2 (N = 34) and 3 (N = 34) were provided with coherent mechanistic explanations of NS through a two-storybook intervention sequence. The first storybook described the logic of NS to explain how a specialized body part evolved within a fictional species (adaptation). The second storybook extended the logic to explain how this same species evolved into a new, distinct species (speciation). Findings revealed that many second and third graders were able to learn and generalize the logic of speciation. This is a remarkable feat given that speciation conflicts with early developing essentialist and teleological intuitions, and defeats most adults. Our analyses also confirmed that constructing this counterintuitive theory draws heavily on children's EF capacities. They additionally reveal that once the theory is constructed, EF plays a continuing role in reasoning by inhibiting competing intuitive explanations that co-exist rather than being replaced during the process of conceptual change.
获得自然选择（NS）机制如何导致新物种（物种形成）进化的反直觉逻辑代表了概念转变的范例。有鉴于此，我们研究了儿童对物种形成的直觉先入之见，以及他们构建、概括和保留对该理论的准确理解的能力。我们通过进行两项多年龄、多阶段和多测量的干预研究来做到这一点，这些研究使用扩展访谈在三个月内四次评估儿童对自然选择的理解。我们还研究了执行功能（EF）技能在这些概念转变过程中的作用。值得注意的是，我们探索了 EF 是否——与概念共存理论一致——不仅支持儿童最初构建反直觉理论，而且在成功学习者的在线推理中发挥持续作用。在两项研究中，来自 2 年级（N=34）和 3 年级（N=34）的北美儿童通过一个两本故事书的干预序列接受了关于 NS 的连贯机制解释。第一本故事书描述了 NS 的逻辑，以解释一个专门的身体部位如何在一个虚构的物种（适应）中进化。第二本故事书扩展了逻辑，以解释同一个物种如何进化成一个新的、独特的物种（物种形成）。研究结果表明，许多二年级和三年级学生能够学习和概括物种形成的逻辑。考虑到物种形成与早期发展的本质论和目的论直觉相冲突，并且击败了大多数成年人，这是一项了不起的壮举。我们的分析还证实，构建这种反直觉理论需要大量的儿童执行功能能力。它们还表明，一旦该理论构建完成，EF 就会通过抑制共存的竞争直觉解释在推理中发挥持续作用，而不是在概念转变过程中被取代。
