Context shapes early diversity in abstract thought

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 116; no. 28; pp. 13891 - 13896
• Main Authors: Carstensen, Alexandra, Zhang, Jing, Heyman, Gail D., Fu, Genyue, Lee, Kang, Walker, Caren M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States National Academy of Sciences 09.07.2019
• Subjects: Bias; Child Development - physiology; Child, Preschool; Children; China; Cognition - physiology; Culture; Experiments; Female; Humans; Learning - physiology; Male; Problem Solving - physiology; Reasoning; Social Sciences; Trajectories; United States; United States; China; United States > US; cognitive development; learning; culture; relational reasoning
• ISSN: 0027-8424; 1091-6490; 1091-6490
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1818365116

Early abstract reasoning has typically been characterized by a “relational shift,” in which children initially focus on object features but increasingly come to interpret similarity in terms of structured relations. An alternative possibility is that this shift reflects a learned bias, rather than a typical waypoint along a universal developmental trajectory. If so, consistent differences in the focus on objects or relations in a child’s learning environment could create distinct patterns of relational reasoning, influencing the type of hypotheses that are privileged and applied. Specifically, children in the United States may be subject to culture-specific influences that bias their reasoning toward objects, to the detriment of relations. In experiment 1, we examine relational reasoning in a population with less object-centric experience—3-y-olds in China—and find no evidence of the failures observed in the United States at the same age. A second experiment with younger and older toddlers in China (18 to 30 mo and 30 to 36 mo) establishes distinct developmental trajectories of relational reasoning across the two cultures, showing a linear trajectory in China, in contrast to the U-shaped trajectory that has been previously reported in the United States. In a third experiment, Chinese 3-y-olds exhibit a bias toward relational solutions in an ambiguous context, while those in the United States prefer object-based solutions. Together, these findings establish population-level differences in relational bias that predict the developmental trajectory of relational reasoning, challenging the generality of an initial object focus and suggesting a critical role for experience.