Children structure their play to reduce uncertainty and deconfound causal variables¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causal r? · q2
Currency · newest study 2015 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? In free play after a demonstration, children preferentially explored the toy whose causal evidence was confounded over a novel toy. → Kidd 2015 q2 i? Children select and design informative interventions, such as isolating beads, to identify causal structure when evidence is ambiguous. → Kidd 2015 (2)

Evidence¶

Kidd 2015¶

Kidd, Celeste and Hayden, Benjamin Y. (2015). The psychology and neuroscience of curiosity. Neuron. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.010

q2 · i? · review · r2

The review reports Schulz and Bonawitz's (2007) experiment in which children played with boxes and levers under confounded or unconfounded demonstrations, then played alone for 60 seconds. Children in the confounded condition preferentially re-explored the demonstrated red box, consistent with play structured to reduce uncertainty.

"During this period, children in the confounded condition preferentially explored the demonstrated red box over the novel yellow one."

Kidd 2015 (2)¶

Kidd, Celeste and Hayden, Benjamin Y. (2015). The psychology and neuroscience of curiosity. Neuron. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2015.09.010

q2 · i? · causal · r?

The review reports Cook, Goodman, and Schulz's (2011) toy-box study where a connected bead pair made the causal source of music ambiguous. When given ambiguous evidence, children tested individual beads and, when beads were permanently connected, held them so only one side touched the box to isolate each bead's effect.

"Children were effective at both selecting and designing informative interventions to figure out the underlying causal structure when it was unclear from the demonstration."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Children's exploratory behavior is related to their question asking — related
• Pedagogically instructed preschoolers perform fewer kinds of actions and discover fewer non-demonstrated functions of a novel toy than children in non-pedagogical conditions — related
• Children's confidence in experimental conclusions increased after training and was higher for unconfounded than confounded experiments, with no training-condition differences — related
• Given ambiguous evidence, preschoolers design informative interventions in their exploratory play (Experiment 2) — related
• Given ambiguous evidence, preschoolers select informative interventions in their exploratory play (Experiment 1) — related
• Children as young as 3 adapt their exploratory actions to the statistical structure of a search task — related
• Preschoolers constrain exploration after direct instruction and after overhearing instruction to another child, but not after overhearing instruction to an adult or a non-pedagogical intentional action — related
• Preschoolers recognize action possibilities (affordances) that allow them to isolate variables when there is information to be gained — related
• Given unambiguous evidence, preschoolers play indiscriminately and rarely try to isolate candidate causes — related
• Manipulating stimulus physical properties and base rates of candidate causes changes preschoolers' exploratory play — related
• Physically or imaginatively manipulating objects during reading improves children's reading comprehension — related