¿Cómo razonan los niños preescolares ante un condicional?

Abstract

The present research study attempted to explore how preschool children interpret conditional expressions and infer from them. With this goal, a novel task to evaluate inferences was designed, adapted from the task used by Harris and Núñez (1996) in their study on how conditionals are understood. 180 preschool children between 3 and 5 years of age took part in the study. They were required to make inferences from pictorial material. The general results showed that preschool children reach conclusions according to the 'modus ponens' inference, as do schoolchildren. However, unlike schoolchildren, on rare occasions preschoolers reach conclusions according to the 'modus tollens' inference. Indeed, the conclusion chosen most frequently is consistent with a conjunctive representation of the conditional. That is to say, preschool children seem to interpret "if p then q", as if it were "p and q". The results suggest that preschoolers do no search for alternatives, as the Mental Model Theory predicts.