Work

Young children distinguish the impossible from the merely improbable

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: From infancy, children show heightened interest in events that are impossible or improbable, relative to likely events. Do young children represent impossible and improbable events as points on a continuum of possibility, or do they instead treat them as categorically distinct? Here, we compared 2- and 3-y-old children's learning (N = 335) following nearly identical events that were equi-probable, improbable, or impossible. We found that children learned significantly better following impossible than possible events, no matter how unlikely. We conclude that young children distinguish between the impossible and the merely improbable.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2411297121

Authors: Aimee E. Stahl, Lisa Feigenson

Institutions: The College of New Jersey, Johns Hopkins University

Language: English

Topic: Child and Animal Learning Development

Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Funders: National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Awards: G2956432554, Understanding error-driven learning in infancy and early childhood, G9000095376