The Characteristics,Mechanism And Application Of Causal Framework’s Promotion Effect On Young Children’s Analogical Reasoning

Analogy reasoning refers to an individual’s ability to identify and compare relationships within two scenarios,or to apply the relationship in one scene to another.It plays a pivotal role in human learning,development and creation.Studies have shown that the causal framework can promote children’s analogy reasoning.However,those studies have neglected the role of children’s sensitivity to human intentions,also missed the impact of the development of children’s causal reasoning and theory of mind.Besides,this causal framework promotion effect have not be reproduced in any real teaching activities involving analogy reasoning.Story retelling is a core method of children’s language teaching.Whether the casual framework can promote the teaching effect of this activity is also a topic worthy of discussion.Therefore,this study clarifies these topics though three specific studies..Study one observes 3-6-year-old children’s performance of analogical tasks in social causal frameworks and physical causal frameworks,in order to explore the difference between the two causal frameworks’ promotion,as well as the relationship between children’s age and this promoting effect.The results show that the promotion of social causal framework is better than the physical causal framework;Older children are more likely to perform better in the analogy reasoning task under both causal framework,but the increase rate of social causal framework’s promotion are much higher than that of physical causal framework’s promotion.Study two asks 5-year-old children,who are promoted most by causal framework in study one,about the reason behind their choice in the same analogical reasoning test as study one,and tests children’s theory of mind,in order to explore the relationship between children’s casual reasoning ability and theory of mind and the promotion effect.The results show that children’s theory of mind only moderate the first half path of the mediation model with social causal framework.Children with higher-order theory of mind are easier to form a correct social causal concept,and therefore behave better in the analogy reasoning task with social causal framework.Study three improve the curriculum of retelling in 5-year-old children,in order to apply this promotion effect into children’s language teaching activity.The results show that the causal framework can promote children’s behavior in story-retelling;children’s theory of mind moderates the promotion effects of causal framework,more specifically,the promotion effect can play a stronger role in children with higher-order theory of mind.The study results can be concluded into the following conclusions:(1)Both causal frameworks can improve the children’s performance in the analogy reasoning task,but their respective improvements are different.Along with the growth of children,the improvement of both causal frameworks is getting better and better,but the increase rate of the promotion effect of social causal framework is far beyond the physical causal framework.(2)While controlling age and gender,the children’s causal concept plays a complete mediating role in both causal framework promotion effects,and children’s theory of mind only plays a moderate role in the first half of the mediation model with social causal framework.(3)The causal framework can also significantly improve the teaching effect of the story retelling course,but its promotion effects weakened compared with those in the laboratory.Children’s theory of mind also plays a moderate role in this promotion effect.In addition,it is worth noting that children’s language ability can also limit this promotion effect.The study results verify the structural mapping theory’s interpretation on children’s neglect of relation and the causal model theory’s emphasis on children’s causal ability.At the same time,they further clarify the characteristics and mechanisms of the promotion effect of causal framework,especially the importance of human intentions in it.Finally,it provides a reference for the practical application of this promotion effects.