Kazali Elena
Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Ioannina, University Campus, 45110, Ioannina, Greece.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2025 Apr;252:106144. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106144. Epub 2024 Dec 13.
Inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning share common cognitive abilities and develop substantially during childhood, but still which executive functions (EFs) underlie this development is debated. The current study assessed three EFs-working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility-and examined their interrelations and their relationship with inductive and deductive reasoning. To examine how these types of reasoning and EFs relate in young children, we recruited 155 children (4-, 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds) to complete two reasoning tasks and three EF tasks. Inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning were directly predicted by working memory and were indirectly predicted by inhibition and cognitive flexibility. This finding sheds light on the predictive role of working memory for both inductive and deductive reasoning and provides support for the shared cognitive relation between them.
归纳推理和演绎推理具有共同的认知能力，且在儿童时期有显著发展，但究竟是哪些执行功能（EFs）支撑了这一发展仍存在争议。本研究评估了三种执行功能——工作记忆、抑制能力和认知灵活性，并考察了它们之间的相互关系以及与归纳推理和演绎推理的关系。为了探究这些推理类型和执行功能在幼儿中是如何关联的，我们招募了155名儿童（4岁、6岁、8岁和10岁）来完成两项推理任务和三项执行功能任务。工作记忆直接预测归纳推理和演绎推理，抑制能力和认知灵活性则间接预测。这一发现揭示了工作记忆对归纳推理和演绎推理的预测作用，并为它们之间的共同认知关系提供了支持。
