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.
The ability to learn from expectations is foundational to social and nonsocial learning in children. However, we know little about the brain basis of reward expectation in development. Here, 3-to 4-year-olds (N = 26) were shown a passive associative learning paradigm with dynamic stimuli. Anticipation for reward-related stimuli was measured via the stimulus preceding negativity (SPN). To our knowledge, this is the first study to measure an SPN in children younger than age 6. Our findings reveal distinct anticipatory neural signatures for social versus nonsocial stimuli, consistent with previous research in older children. This study suggests an SPN can be elicited in preschoolers and is larger for social than nonsocial stimuli.We are grateful to the children and parents who participated in the study. We also thank Natalie Godfrey and Jacob Radparvar for their efforts toward data collection. Finally, we thank Tiffany Wang for her insightful feedback and efforts toward facilitating recruitment.
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