title: Children's developing understanding of the relation between variable causal efficacy and mechanistic complexity.
abstract: Two experiments investigated 3-4-year-olds' ability to infer the causal mechanisms for a pair of lights. In both experiments the exterior of the two lights appeared identical. In Experiment 1, one light displayed a stable activation pattern of a single color while the other light displayed a variable pattern of activation by cycling through a series of different colors (i.e., a more varied effect). Children were asked to judge which light had a more complex internal structure. Four-year-olds were more likely to match the light with the more variable effect with a more complex internal mechanism and the light with the more stable effect with a less complex mechanism. Three-year-olds' responses were at chance. Experiment 2 replicated this finding when the activation patterns of the two lights were described verbally but never demonstrated. Taken together, these results suggest that 4-year-olds appreciate that the variability of an object's causal efficacy is related to the complexity of its internal mechanistic structure.
authors.affiliation: Brown University, United States. Electronic address: Christopher_Erb@Brown.edu.
authors.forename: Christopher D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Erb
authors.forename: David W
authors.initials: DW
authors.lastname: Buchanan
authors.forename: David M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Sobel
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male
keywords: Causal mechanisms; Causal reasoning; Cognitive development