Children's Understanding of Inference as a Source of Knowledge

SODIAN, BEATE, and WIMMER, HEINZ. Children's Understanding of Inference as a Source of Knowledge. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1987, 58, 424-433. 4to 6-year-old children's understanding of inferential reasoning as a source of knowledge was studied in a series of experiments. The basic feature of the experimental paradigm was that a person was shown to be aware of premise information from which a certain conclusion follows by simple inference. When asked whether this person knew the conclusion under these conditions, most children younger than 6 years replied that he or she did not know it. These children did not seem to understand inference as a source of knowledge, although they proficiently used it as a source of knowledge. When they were asked whether they knew the conclusion, they responded affirmatively and could specify the critical fact. In contrast, young children's assessment of other persons' knowledge was strictly empiricist: other persons were attributed knowledge only when they had perceptual access to the critical fact. This failure to attribute inferential knowledge to others was independent of whether the other personr was a story figure or an adult and of whether she was placed in the opposite perspective or shared the subject's perspective. Even when the other person explicitly stated the conclusion, young children disregarded inferential access and judged the conclusion to be a guess. The implications of these findings for children's developing theories of mind are discussed.