McColgan, Kerry L. and McCormack, Teresa. (2008) Searching and planning : young children's reasoning about past and future event sequences. Child Development, Vol.79 (No.5). pp. 1477-1497. ISSN 0009-3920

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Abstract

Six experiments examined children's ability to make inferences using temporal order information. Children completed versions of a task involving a toy zoo; one version required reasoning about past events (search task) and the other required reasoning about future events (planning task). Children younger than 5 years failed both the search and the planning tasks, whereas 5-year-olds passed both (Experiments 1 and 2). However, when the number of events in the sequence was reduced (Experiment 3), 4-year-olds were successful on the search task but not the planning task. Planning difficulties persisted even when relevant cues were provided (Experiments 4 and 5). Experiment 6 showed that improved performance on the search task found in Experiment 3 was not due to the removal of response ambiguity.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions:	Faculty of Science > Psychology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Reasoning in children, Human information processing in children, Inference
Journal or Publication Title:	Child Development
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc.
ISSN:	0009-3920
Date:	September 2008
Volume:	Vol.79
Number:	No.5
Number of Pages:	21
Page Range:	pp. 1477-1497
Identification Number:	10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01200.x
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access
Funder:	Arts & Humanities Research Council (Great Britain), Northern Ireland. Dept. for Employment and Learning
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URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/29383

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