Young children's use of probabilistic reliability and base-rates in decision-making.

ABSTRACT: Children are skilled reasoners who readily use causal, reliability, and base-rate (i.e., prior probability) information in their decisions. Though these abilities are typically studied in isolation, children often must consider multiple pieces of information to make an informed decision. Four experiments (N = 320) explored the development of children's ability to use reliability and base-rate information when making decisions about draw outcomes. Experiment 1 examined the age at which children can first compare and choose between probabilistically reliable machines. Three- and 4-year-old children saw machines that were probabilistically reliable at obtaining objects while sampling from uniform distributions (i.e., all target or non-target objects). Although 4-year-old children correctly us

SUBMITTER: Gualtieri S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9132303 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature