title: Almost thinking counterfactually: children's understanding of close counterfactuals.
abstract: Saying something "almost happened" indicates that one is considering a close counterfactual world. Previous evidence suggested that children start to consider these close counterfactuals at around 2 years of age (P. L. Harris, 1997), substantially earlier than they pass other tests of counterfactual thinking. However, this success appears to result from false positives. In Experiment 1 (N = 41), 3- and 4-year-olds could identify a character who almost completed an action when the comparison did not complete it. However, in Experiments 1 and 2 (N = 98), children performed poorly when the comparison character completed the action. In Experiment 3 (N = 28), 5- and 6-year-olds consistently passed the task, indicating that they made appropriate counterfactual interpretations of the "almost" statements. This understanding of close counterfactuals proved more difficult than standard counterfactuals.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK. s.r.beck@bham.ac.uk
authors.forename: Sarah R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Beck
authors.forename: Carlie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Guthrie
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010988:Play and Playthings / Q000523:psychology; D011581:Psychological Tests; D013850:Thinking; D006113:United Kingdom