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Thinking Counterfactually Supports Children’s Evidence Evaluation in Causal Learning
Author(s) -
Engle Jae,
Walker Caren M.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.13518
Subject(s) - counterfactual conditional , psychology , causal model , causal inference , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , contrast (vision) , counterfactual thinking , social psychology , econometrics , medicine , pathology , artificial intelligence , computer science , economics
Often, the evidence we observe is consistent with more than one explanation. How do learners discriminate among candidate causes? The current studies examine whether counterfactuals help 5‐year olds ( N = 120) select between competing hypotheses and compares the effectiveness of these prompts to a related scaffold. In Experiment 1, counterfactuals support evidence evaluation, leading children to privilege and extend the cause that accounted for more data. In Experiment 2, the hypothesis that accounted for the most evidence was pitted against children’s prior beliefs. Children who considered alternative outcomes privileged the hypothesis that accounted for more observations, whereas those who explained relied on prior beliefs. Findings demonstrate that counterfactuals recruit attention to disambiguating evidence and outperform explanation when data contrast with existing beliefs.