Finding the Cause: Verbal Framing Helps Children Extract Causal Evidence Embedded in a Complex Scene

摘要: In making causal inferences, children must both identify a problem and selectively attend to meaningful evidence. Four experiments demonstrate that verbally framing an event (“Which animals make Lion laugh?”) helps 4-year-olds extract evidence from complex scene accurate inferences. Whereas was unnecessary when isolated, required it reason about embedded in more scene. Subtler stating the problem, but not highlighting relevant variables, equally effective. Simply relationship perceptually obvious did facilitate children's level of verbal framing. These results illustrate how reasoning relies on scaffolding adults.