Perceptual causality in children.

Full Abstract

Three experiments considered the development of perceptual causality in children from 3 to 9 years of age (N = 176 in total). Adults tend to see cause and effect even in schematic, two-dimensional motion events:
Thus, if square A moves toward B, which moves upon contact, they report that A launches B--physical causality. If B moves before contact, adults report that B tries to escape from A--social or psychological causality. A brief pause between movements eliminates such impressions. Even infants in the first year of life are sensitive to causal structure in both contact and no-contact events, but previous research with talking-age children found poor verbal reports. The present experiments used a picture-based forced-choice task to reduce linguistic demands. Observers saw eight different animations involving squares A and B. Events varied in whether or not these agents made contact; whether or not there was a delay at the closest point; and whether they moved rigidly or with a rhythmic, nonrigid "caterpillar" motion. Participants of all ages assigned events with contact to the physical domain and events without contact to the psychological domain. In addition, participants of all ages chose causality more often for events without delay than with delay, but these events became more distinct over the preschool range. The manipulation of agent motion had only minor and inconsistent effects across studies, even though children of all ages considered only the nonrigid motion to be animal-like. These results agree with the view that perceptual causality is available early in development.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Schlottmann, Anne (A); Allen, Deborah (D); Linderoth, Carina (C); Hesketh, Sarah (S);

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, University College London, UK. a.schlottmann(-atsign-)psychol.ucl.ac.uk

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Child development (Child Dev), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: -2002 Nov-Dec; vol 73 (issue 6) : pp 1656-77

Dates: Created 2002/12/18; Completed 2003/04/03; Revised 2007/11/15;

PMID: 12487485, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.