Investigates the relationship between counterfactual reasoning and cognitive abilities in preschoolers, suggesting linguistic cues influence performance.
Key Points
The aim is to explore how different forms of counterfactual reasoning relate to cognitive abilities in preschool children.
147 Chinese children aged 4 to 6 participated in counterfactual reasoning tasks and cognitive assessments.
Tasks evaluated subtractive and additive counterfactual reasoning, verbal short-term memory, inhibitory control, and language.
Binary logistic regression and generalized estimating equations analyzed the associations between reasoning types and cognitive abilities.
Inhibitory control significantly associated with overall counterfactual reasoning performance (p<0.01).
Verbal short-term memory showed a significant association with subtractive counterfactual reasoning (p<0.05) but not with additive reasoning.
Language scores influenced reasoning performance based on task order in children with above-median language abilities.