Young children's deontic and epistemic reasoning.
Published: 2004
Language: eng
Number of pages: 65
Subjects: Cognitive psychology.; Reasoning.; Language and logic.; Developmental psychology.
Description: Research has suggested that both children and adults are better at deontic than epistemic reasoning. The current study examined this deontic advantage in children (N = 32, M = 46.78 months), by modifying an existing reasoning task and creating a second similar task. Children's performance on two false-belief tasks and one language measure was also assessed. It was hypothesized that children would perform better on the deontic version of the reasoning tasks, and that epistemic reasoning would be positively correlated with false belief. Because the first hypothesis was not supported, the second hypothesis could not be tested. Upon modifying the existing reasoning task, many contextual differences between the deontic and epistemic conditions were removed, leaving only a language difference. This suggests that it may be the context, not the language, that is particularly important for the deontic advantage. Future research will attempt to further tease apart this context/language distinction.
Notes: Adviser:  Janet Astington.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2004.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 43-03, page: 1000.

MICR copy on microfiche (1 microfiche).