Article
Children's Development of Analogical Reasoning: Insights from Scene Analogy Problems
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
(2006)
Abstract
We explored how relational complexity and featural distraction, as varied in scene analogy problems, affect children's analogical reasoning performance. Results with 3- and 4-year-olds, 6- and 7-year-olds, 9- to 11-year-olds, and 13- and 14-year-olds indicate that when children can identify the critical structural relations in a scene analogy problem, development of their ability to reason analogically interacts with both relational complexity and featural distraction. Error patterns suggest that children are more likely to select a distracting object than to make a relational error for problems that present both possibilities. This tendency decreases with age, and older children make fewer errors overall. The results suggest that changes in analogical reasoning with age depend on the interplay among increases in relational knowledge, the capacity to integrate multiple relations, and inhibitory control over featural distraction.
Disciplines
Publication Date
July, 2006
Citation Information
Robert G Morrison. "Children's Development of Analogical Reasoning: Insights from Scene Analogy Problems" Journal of Experimental Child Psychology Vol. 94 Iss. 3 (2006) p. 249 - 273 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/robert-morrison/3/