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Young children do not succeed in choice tasks that imply evaluating chances
Vittorio Girotto1, Laura Fontanari1, Michel Gonzalez2
1Center for Experimental Research in Management and Economics, DCP, University IUAV of Venice, Italy.
Insights
Preverbal infants show intuitive probability understanding, but this ability is not consistently found in young children. Development of probabilistic reasoning in children is complex and not always linear.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Development
- Developmental Psychology
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Preverbal infants demonstrate probabilistic intuitions in their behavior.
- This contrasts with young children's verbal judgments, which often lack probability understanding before age 5.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the development of probabilistic reasoning in children aged 3-5 years.
- To reconcile conflicting findings on infant and child probability understanding.
Main Methods:
- Three choice tasks were administered to 3-5-year-old children.
- Tasks were designed to mirror those where infants show success in probabilistic evaluations.
Main Results:
- Children of all ages succeeded in non-probabilistic tasks.
- Only 5-year-olds made optimal choices in probabilistic tasks; younger children performed randomly or used heuristics.
Conclusions:
- Interpreting infants' probabilistic abilities requires caution.
- The development of probability understanding in children is not linear and emerges later than previously suggested by infant studies.
Abstract:
Preverbal infants manifest probabilistic intuitions in their reactions to the outcomes of simple physical processes and in their choices. Their ability conflicts with the evidence that, before the age of about 5years, children's verbal judgments do not reveal probability understanding. To assess these conflicting results, three studies tested 3-5-year-olds on choice tasks on which infants perform successfully. The results showed that children of all age groups made optimal choices in tasks that did not require forming probabilistic expectations. In probabilistic tasks, however, only 5-year-olds made optimal choices. Younger children performed at random and/or were guided by superficial heuristics. These results suggest caution in interpreting infants' ability to evaluate chance, and indicate that the development of this ability may not follow a linear trajectory.
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