Data_Sheet_1_Children's Mental Models of Prenatal Development.PDF

Children's thinking about prenatal development requires reasoning about change that cannot be observed directly. How do children gain knowledge about this topic? Do children have mental models or is their knowledge fragmented? In Experiment 1, results of a forced-choice questionnaire about prenatal development (6- to 13-year-olds; N = 317) indicated that children do have a variety of coherent, grade-related, theories about early shape of the fetus, but not about bodily functions. Coherence of the mental models was enhanced by a preceding generative task. Children's mental models were in agreement with reasoning about natural transformations (Rosengren et al., 1991) and constraints in representational flexibility (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). In Experiment 2, an open-question interview was administered (6- to 12-year-old children; N = 38). The interview resulted in grade-unrelated, incoherent responses. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of naïve biology and to the effects of different methodologies being used in the area of mental models.

儿童对产前发育的认知，需要对无法直接观测的变化进行推理。儿童是如何获取这一主题的知识的？儿童是否拥有心理模型（mental models），抑或是其知识体系呈现碎片化状态？在实验1中，针对产前发育的迫选式问卷（受试对象为6至13岁儿童，有效样本量N=317）结果显示，儿童针对胎儿早期形态拥有多种连贯且与年级相关的理论，但在身体机能相关的认知上并无此类系统性理论。前置的生成式任务可提升此类心理模型的连贯性。儿童的心理模型与自然转化推理（罗森格林等人，1991）以及表征灵活性的约束条件（卡米洛夫-史密斯，1992）相一致。在实验2中，研究人员对6至12岁儿童实施了开放式问题访谈（有效样本量N=38），访谈结果呈现出与年级无关且不连贯的回答模式。本研究有助于更深入地理解朴素生物学，以及不同研究方法在心理模型研究领域的应用效果。