Developmental Changes in Strategies for Gathering Evidence About Biological Kinds

Abstract

How do people gather samples of evidence to learn about the world? Adults often prefer to sample evidence from diverse sources-for example, choosing to test a robin and a turkey to find out if something is true of birds in general. Children below age 9, however, often do not consider sample diversity, instead treating non-diverse samples (e.g., two robins) and diverse samples as equivalently informative. The current study (N = 247) found that this discontinuity stems from developmental changes in standards for evaluating evidence-younger children chose to learn from samples that best approximate idealized views of what category members are supposed to be like (e.g., the fastest cheetahs), with a gradual shift across age toward samples that cover more within-category variation (e.g., cheetahs of varying speeds). These findings have implications for the relation between conceptual structure and inductive reasoning, and for the mechanisms underlying inductive reasoning more generally. Emily Foster-Hanson and Kelsey Moty are joint first authors. E. Foster-Hanson et al. / Cognitive Science 44 (2020) 3 of 23 E. Foster-Hanson et al. / Cognitive Science 44 (2020) 5 of 23 E. Foster-Hanson et al. / Cognitive Science 44 (2020) 7 of 23 E. Foster-Hanson et al. / Cognitive Science 44 (2020) 9 of 23

The default‐interventionist model underlies premise typicality weakening the premise diversity effect during category‐based induction: Event‐related potentials evidence

“…These models consistently suggested that top‐down processes impact FN400, indexing familiarity perception, which results from a discrepancy among task‐related previous expectations and stimuli‐related processing, with greater FN400 amplitudes for increased processing discrepancies (Leynes & Mok, 2020; Mecklinger & Bader, 2020). Diverse premises meet smaller processing discrepancies than non‐diverse premises because diverse premises support CBI more than non‐diverse premises (Feeney & Heit, 2011; Foster‐Hanson et al ., 2020; Heit et al ., 2005; Kalkstein et al ., 2020). Therefore, the diverse premises elicit more positive FN400 amplitudes.…”

“…Performance in children and older adults remains unclear. Some studies have found that children may ignore diverse evidence, focusing on the degree of typicality (Foster‐Hanson et al ., 2020; Lawson, 2019; Rhodes & Liebenson, 2015). Future research should explore the development of the influence of premise typicality on the diversity effect.…”

“…Facilitated cognitive processing can be attributed to more efficient visual feature extraction from contextually derived expectations (Evans & Federmeier, 2007; Federmeier et al ., 2005). During CBI, individuals prefer to use diversity strategies to make inferences (Feeney & Heit, 2011; Foster‐Hanson et al ., 2020; Rhodes & Liebenson, 2015). Diverse premises tend to promote the expectations of property prediction (Osta‐Vélez & Gärdenfors, 2020).…”

“…Individuals tend to infer that argument A has higher inductive strength than argument B because the robin is a more typical bird than the penguin. The premise diversity effect during CBI suggests that higher inductive strength of conclusions is supported by more diverse evidence than relatively non‐diverse and homogeneous evidence (Feeney & Heit, 2011; Foster‐Hanson, Moty, Cardarelli, Ocampo & Rhodes, 2020; Heit, Hahn & Feeney, 2005; Kalkstein et al ., 2020). For instance, given the following two arguments:…”

“…Individuals are more likely to assume that argument C has higher inductive strength than argument D because the premises of argument C are diverse, and those of argument D non‐diverse. Both children and adults can address robust premise typicality and diversity effects during CBI (Couch, 2022; Foster‐Hanson et al ., 2020; Foster‐Hanson & Rhodes, 2019; Hayes et al ., 2010; Hayes & Heit, 2018; Lawson, 2019; Liang, Chen, Lei & Li, 2016; Long, Li & Lei, 2017; Rhodes & Liebenson, 2015).…”