Most 3-year-olds deployed a demonstrated external marking strategy, but none modified it to solve a conceptually similar transfer task¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r? · q3
Currency · newest study 2023 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Three-year-olds adopted the demonstrated reminder-setting strategy in the initial test phase but failed to adapt it for the structurally distinct transfer task. → Armitage 2023

Evidence¶

Armitage 2023¶

Armitage, KL; Suddendorf, T; Bulley, A; Bastos, APM; Taylor, AH; Redshaw, J. (2023). Creativity and Flexibility in Young Children's Use of External Cognitive Strategies. Developmental Psychology, 59 (6), pp. 995-1005. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001562

q3 · i? · causal · r?

Preregistered experimental study of 3–8-year-olds (N = 72) in Australia; children watched an experimenter demonstrate marking a hidden prize's location, then had six test trials. The article reports that "most 3-year-olds deployed the demonstrated strategy" yet none modified it for transfer.

"Although most 3-year-olds deployed the demonstrated strategy in the initial test phase, none of them modified that strategy to solve the transfer task."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• From age 6, children deploy effective external strategies on most trials, with strategy number, combination, and order varying widely within and across age groups — related
• From age 4, children spontaneously devise multiple previously unseen reminder-setting strategies across transfer trials, with this tendency increasing with age — related
• Young children can self-initiate external metacognitive strategies and transfer them across contexts, with flexibility increasing over the preschool and early school years — a broader claim this one bears on