Context shapes early diversity in abstract thought.

ABSTRACT: Early abstract reasoning has typically been characterized by a "relational shift," in which children initially focus on object features but increasingly come to interpret similarity in terms of structured relations. An alternative possibility is that this shift reflects a learned bias, rather than a typical waypoint along a universal developmental trajectory. If so, consistent differences in the focus on objects or relations in a child's learning environment could create distinct patterns of relational reasoning, influencing the type of hypotheses that are privileged and applied. Specifically, children in the United States may be subject to culture-specific influences that bias their reasoning toward objects, to the detriment of relations. In experiment 1, we examine relational reasoning i

SUBMITTER: Carstensen A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6628784 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature