Developmental correlates of counterfactual reasoning of different structures in Chinese preschool children

Linguistic cues for expressing counterfactuality may affect children’s counterfactual reasoning performance. Subtractive and additive counterfactual premises contain different linguistic cues for enhancing counterfactuality, to interpret and reason from which may involve different cognitive abilities. This study investigated the developmental correlates of both subtractive and additive counterfactual reasoning. From February to April 2023, 147 Chinese 4- to 6-year-olds received tasks assessing subtractive and additive counterfactual reasoning, verbal short-term memory, inhibitory control, and language. Binary logistic regression and generalised estimating equations compared the associations between the two forms of counterfactual reasoning and other cognitive abilities. Inhibitory control was significantly associated with counterfactual reasoning in general. Verbal short-term memory was significantly associated with subtractive but not additive counterfactual reasoning. For children with above-median language scores, task order was significantly associated with counterfactual reasoning in general. Subtractive and additive counterfactual reasoning had both similar and different developmental correlates. These findings support the proposal that the presence of different linguistic cues for expressing counterfactuality in subtractive and additive counterfactual premises may shape differences in development between subtractive and additive counterfactual reasoning. Future studies may further explore how language and cognition interact with each other in shaping children’s mental landscapes.