Training Children In Rule-based Reasoning: Assessment Of Transfer

Research about rule-based reasoning in children has become focus in cognition.Many researchers designed all kinds of tasks to study the ability of rule-based reasoning in children and accumulated massive research results in this field. Especially,Patricia's training study methodology in investigating the abilty of rule-based reasoning in three-year-old children provided inconclusive evidence about their poor achievement. But as a training study,we think its design should been improved.We adopted more rigorous design than his study and conducted an training study about the ability of rule-based reasoning in young children. Furthermore,our study assessed distant-transfer of training effect.The results were follows:1 .The age range from 3.5 to 4 years is a rapid period for the development of children's rule-based reasoning ability.At this age,the age shows an obvious effect on the development and children's reasoning ability udndergoes a rapid development.At about the age of 4,most children possess the ability to use embedded rules and can switch flexibly between sets of rules keeping two incompatible rules in mind.2. In spite of the strong performance of 3-year-olds and 3.5-year-olds with the apparatus in the training session,when these additional cues to the workings of the ramp were no longer provided in the test session,but close-transfer not distant-transfer did notoccure.lt shows that they both can not use embedded rules and their rule-based reasoning ability is especially limited. It shows that providing redundant non-verbal cues may facilitate preschoolers' use of complex rule systems,with poor transfer attributable to young children's dependence on cues to access the relevant rules.3. When children encounter difficulties in rule-base reasoning, they tend to demonstrate a "straight bias" and "colour prepotent responses".This phenomenon can be observed both in different children and in the same children performing different tasks. It suggests that children's rule-based reasoning could be both rule-based and experience-based.4. There was an effect of learning on children's performance.However, the 3-year-olds as a group remained at chance in their predictions in our study.Thus, it did not appear that a mere lack of experience with the device was responsible for the 3-year-olds'poorer performance, and the main factor was the complexity of tasks that influnced their rule-based reasoning.