Reasoning in middle childhood: a dynamic model of performance on transitivity tasks

An overview of the models and data relevant to children's transitive reasoning is provided. We propose a new conceptual framework, one which is embedded in a dynamic model that accounts for children's failures to reason transitively. It is assumed that rather than reasoning in a transitive manner, children often encode both relational and absolute stimulus information and use stimulus generalization as a transfer mechanism. The model is applied to new and extant data. The model provides an adequate and parsimonious account of children's failures on these tasks. We conclude that progress in understanding children's reasoning is dependent on operationalizing constructs in formal models so that assumptions can be evaluated and rejected.