Chen Xin, Chen Yinghe, Yang Xiujie
School of Child Development and Education, China Women's University, Beijing, 100101, China.
Institute of Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
Cogn Process. 2025 Jun 4. doi: 10.1007/s10339-025-01281-w.
Working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC) are two critical executive function components that support children's analogical reasoning. WM provides a workspace for storing and manipulating relational information, while IC helps suppress irrelevant details and manage competing information. Despite their established roles, the specific mechanisms by which WM and IC influence analogical reasoning in preschoolers remain unclear. To address this gap, we proposed the mediating roles of vocabulary knowledge and visual perception in the relationships of WM, IC with analogical reasoning. Given that WM and IC are also crucial for developing vocabulary and visual processing skills, mediation analysis offers a comprehensive framework to reveal how these cognitive processes interact in preschoolers' analogical reasoning. A total of 180 Chinese preschoolers were recruited for this study, with ages ranging from 3 to 6 years (39.11-81.26 months; K1-K3). Results showed that after controlling for the child's age, gender, and IQ, WM was still positively correlated with children's analogical reasoning, and the role of IC was not significant. Moreover, vocabulary knowledge and visual perception played mediating roles in the linkage between WM, IC, and analogical reasoning. These findings emphasized the roles of visual perception and vocabulary in supporting children's acquisition of analogical reasoning. This could offer practical implications for effectively enhancing children's analogical reasoning skills.
工作记忆（WM）和抑制控制（IC）是支持儿童类比推理的两个关键执行功能组件。工作记忆提供了一个用于存储和处理关系信息的工作空间，而抑制控制则有助于抑制无关细节并管理相互竞争的信息。尽管它们的作用已得到确立，但工作记忆和抑制控制影响学龄前儿童类比推理的具体机制仍不清楚。为了填补这一空白，我们提出词汇知识和视觉感知在工作记忆、抑制控制与类比推理的关系中起中介作用。鉴于工作记忆和抑制控制对于词汇发展和视觉处理技能的发展也至关重要，中介分析提供了一个全面的框架，以揭示这些认知过程在学龄前儿童类比推理中是如何相互作用的。本研究共招募了180名中国学龄前儿童，年龄在3至6岁之间（39.11 - 81.26个月；小班至中班）。结果表明，在控制了儿童的年龄、性别和智商后，工作记忆仍与儿童的类比推理呈正相关，而抑制控制的作用不显著。此外，词汇知识和视觉感知在工作记忆、抑制控制与类比推理之间的联系中起中介作用。这些发现强调了视觉感知和词汇在支持儿童获得类比推理能力方面的作用。这可能为有效提高儿童的类比推理技能提供实际启示。
