Inagaki K, Hatano G
Faculty of Education, Chiba University, Japan.
Child Dev. 1993 Oct;64(5):1534-49.
A experiments investigated children's understanding of the mind-body distinction. Children of ages 4 and 5 recognized not only the differential modifiability of changeable versus unchangeable human properties and bodily versus mental properties, but also the independence of activities of bodily organs from a person's intention (Experiment 1). When presented 3 types of causal explanations (i.e., intentional, vitalistic, mechanical), 6-year-olds chose most often as most plausible for bodily functions vitalistic explanations (i.e., those ascribing the phenomena to a relevant bodily organ's initiative and effortful engagement in activity); 8-year-olds chose the vitalistic explanations second most often, following mechanical ones (Experiment 2). However, 6-year-olds, as well as 8-year-olds and adults, did not always choose vitalistic explanations over intentional explanations (Experiment 3); whereas they tended to prefer vitalistic explanations for biological phenomena, they predominantly accepted intentional ones for psychological phenomena (Experiment 3A). These results suggest that children as young as 6 years of age have acquired a form of biology as an autonomous domain which is separate from that of psychology.
一项实验研究了儿童对身心区别的理解。4岁和5岁的儿童不仅认识到可变与不可变的人类属性以及身体与心理属性的不同可变性，还认识到身体器官活动相对于人的意图的独立性（实验1）。当呈现三种因果解释类型（即意向性、活力论、机械论）时，6岁儿童最常选择活力论解释（即将现象归因于相关身体器官的主动性和积极参与活动）作为对身体功能最合理的解释；8岁儿童其次常选择活力论解释，排在机械论解释之后（实验2）。然而，6岁儿童以及8岁儿童和成年人并非总是选择活力论解释而非意向性解释（实验3）；虽然他们倾向于对生物现象选择活力论解释，但对心理现象主要接受意向性解释（实验3A）。这些结果表明，年仅6岁的儿童已经形成了一种作为自主领域的生物学概念，它与心理学领域是分开的。
