The Research On The Impact Of Children's Inhibitory Control On The Counterfactual Reasoning Ability

Counterfactual reasoning is a supposed thinking activity where an individual psychologically negates and reconstructs some past events that have happened before. It has been a topic of great interest to researchers for many years to focus on whether children has explored the counterfactual reasoning ability, when children could conduct the counterfactual reasoning ability, why children made so many realist errors in the task, what's the relations between children's counterfactual reasoning ability and other cognitive abilities (reasoning, psychology theory, pretending),however, the research for understanding of its mechanism are very few. As the studies for children's counterfactual reasoning become more and more popular, the research to explore the mechanism under that ability has become a priority.The purposes of this research is to explore the relationship between the inhibitory control(IC) and the counterfactual reasoning for the children about 3—5 years old. Mainly by two types of methods to fulfill that target: one is relating study and the other is training study. The training study is due to explain the causality between its training experiences and the later special measure of results. This study adopts mixed design of within-subjects and between-subjects. Firstly, to explore whether there is relationship between counterfactual reasoning and IC; then, by the training for IC (classification card training and other IC trainings), to find out if children's IC could affect the forming and development of counterfactual reasoning.Results show:(1) The performance of counterfactual tasks by 4 and 5 years old children are better than 3 years old children. Their performances are positively related to age; however, there is no difference between different sexes. The two counterfactual tasks are positively related, even controlling the age, sex and language ability.(2) The performance of counterfactual tasks by 4 and 5 years old children are better than 3 years old children. Their performances are positively related to age; however, there is no difference between different sexes. Different IC tasks are positively related, even controlling the age, sex and language ability.(3) Children's performances in counterfactual reasoning tasks and IC tasks are positively related, even controlling the age, sex and language affects.(4)Children's passive IC could predict their counterfactual reasoning ability more remarkably.(5) Classification card training and other IC trainings affect children's performances in counterfactual reasoning tasks, which show the IC trainings are effectively.(6) Classification card training and other IC trainings affect and promote children's performances in counterfactual reasoning tasks, which show IC is the reason for the development of counterfactual reasoning ability.