Reasoning about make-believe and hypothetical suppositions: Towards a theory of belief-contravening reasoning

Amsel, Eric; Trionfi, Gabriel; Campbell, Richard

doi:10.1016/j.cogdev.2005.08.002

Cited by 17 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…In this task, the participant must choose between pictures that correspond to statements (a) and (b) in the problems above. As such it makes direct contact with the adult methodology (paper-pencil booklet tasks) in ways that other studies (e.g., Amsel, Triofini, & Campbell, 2005) do not, which allows a direct comparison between children's and adults' reasoning.…”

Section: Tablementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The belief revision problems were based on a pretence structure ("Let's pretend …") and not on a hypothetical structure (e.g., "Assume…"). Amsel et al (2005) pointed out that, although the types of reasoning in both structures are correlated, reasoning in a pretence structure is easier, because it seems to be less constrained by realworld knowledge. Therefore, he concluded that the cognitive process underlying these two forms of reasoning are distinguished but related.…”

Section: Methodological Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With these arbitrary relations, adult reasoners either tend to reject the general statements or show no preferred strategy for revising beliefs that differentiate between the general and particular statements. This suggests that to adopt the generalist strategy, the reasoners, whether children or adults, must have an investment in the propositions they are asked to reason about (see also Amsel et al, 2005). This is sensible because to revise beliefs, one must have at least a tacit commitment to an initial set of propositions.…”

Section: Mental Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Development of Counterfactual Reasoning in Belief Revision

Hoeck

Revlin²,

Dieussaert³

et al. 2012

PSYCHOL BELG

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The present study examines how children revise beliefs in the face of a new piece of information that they must accept as true and under what circumstances their belief-revision processes differ from college-aged adults. Results suggest that overall, 7-year-old children (children at Stage 2 reasoning; Moshman, 1990) revise beliefs as do adults, by rejecting particular beliefs in favour of more general ones. However, only adults adjust their revision strategy as a consequence of the logical structure of the initial belief set. Adults, but not children, tend to organise their revised beliefs to be consistent with general statements more often when the set of beliefs create a Modus Tollens logic structure than when they create a Modus Ponens structure. This difference in belief revision by the two age groups reflects their sensitivity to logical structure.

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Section: Tablementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodological Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mental Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Development of Counterfactual Reasoning in Belief Revision

Hoeck

Revlin²,

Dieussaert³

et al. 2012

PSYCHOL BELG

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“…It has also been argued that pretend play may be important because it encourages the development of causal reasoning and counterfactual thinking (Amsel, Trionfi, & Campbell, 2005;Buchsbaum, Bridgers, Weisberg, & Gopnik, 2012;Dias & Harris, 1988;Gopnik & Walker, 2013). Pretend play and counterfactual reasoning share many important features.…”

Section: Pretend Play In Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Does Tom bark?") when they were told to pretend that the premise was the true (Dias & Harris, 1988; see also Amsel et al, 2005;Hawkins, Pea, Glick, & Scribner, 1984). Such syllogisms are typically difficult for young children because they resist the initial premise that contradicts what they know about the world.…”

Section: Pretend Play In Educationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pretend Play as a Context for Learning New Information

Hopkins

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ii AbstractMany parents and educators advocate for an increased role for pretend play in early childhood education. They argue that pretending benefits children emotionally, socially, and cognitively. Pretend play is highly motivating for young children, so it could potentially be a useful tool to engage students with new material; however, there is little direct evidence that pretend play is useful as a context for teaching new information. In fact, it could be very difficult for children to learn new information that is presented in a pretend context because they tend to quarantine pretend worlds from reality. Several studies have investigated whether children can learn information presented in fictional stories, but comparatively few have considered the analogous question in pretend play: Can children learn new information that is embedded in a pretend context, and how does this learning compare to other non-pretend learning activities?The current study found that neither realistic nor fantastical pretend play influenced children's learning of novel object categories or their analogous transfer of a novel problem solving strategy. Learning was predicted by children's ability to discriminate fantasy from reality, suggesting that learning from play is an advanced cognitive strategy that involves separating realistic from implausible information. This work can inform the policy debate about the use of pretend play in early childhood education and provides a stepping stone for future investigations into the role of pretense and fantasy in learning.iii Acknowledgements

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Logical and Hypothetical Reasoning in Adolescence, Development of

Amsel

Moshman²

2015

International Encyclopedia of the Social &Amp; Behavioral Sciences

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Reasoning about make-believe and hypothetical suppositions: Towards a theory of belief-contravening reasoning

Cited by 17 publications

References 45 publications

The Development of Counterfactual Reasoning in Belief Revision

The Development of Counterfactual Reasoning in Belief Revision

Pretend Play as a Context for Learning New Information

Logical and Hypothetical Reasoning in Adolescence, Development of

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