›› 2020, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (2): 386-392.

Previous Articles     Next Articles

The Influence Factors and Intervention Promotion of Children’s Analogical Reasoning

  

  • Received:2019-05-20 Revised:2019-09-11 Online:2020-03-15 Published:2020-03-20
  • Contact: Ying-He CHEN

儿童类比推理的影响因素及干预促进

陈逸群1,于晓1,陈英和2,党茜茜1,韩敏3,侯江文4   

  1. 1. 北京师范大学
    2. 北京新街口外大街19号,北京师范大学心理学部
    3. 北京明天幼稚集团
    4. 山东省威海市文登区大众小学
  • 通讯作者: 陈英和

Abstract: As a core feature of human intelligence, analogical reasoning is the process of drawing relationships between representations, specifically between prior knowledge and new situations or between representations of two domains. Previous studies have put forward many theories to explain children’s difficulties in solving analogical problems. Theories like ‘capacity limitation’, ‘knowledge limitation’ and ‘relational shift’ have provided some explanations in these difficulties, which promoted the development of children’s analogical reasoning. Based on the theories above, recently researchers try to investigate the influence factors of analogical reasoning from the perspectives of inhibitory control, working memory and analogical reasoning strategies. Inhibitory control and working memory have been demonstrated the crucial role in children's analogical reasoning by some behavioral studies. However, the interaction mechanism between inhibitory control and working memory in the development of analogical reasoning has not proved. Different studies with different paradigms may lead to different results. And the interference settings of these studies may need further consideration. Research involving computational model has?provided a new perspective for exploring the relationship between working memory and inhibitory control, capacity limitation and knowledge limitation. By using the computer model, researchers can control the input variables and compare their predictions with human performance in controlled experiments, which helps to clarify the role of some variables. Besides, analogical reasoning strategies have been proved to be an important influence factor of analogical reasoning. The use of eye movements helps researchers distinguish the analogical reasoning strategies of adults and children, proving that the project-first strategy is conducive to help children avoid the attraction of perceptual or distracted lure in the process of analogical reasoning. Research on the mechanism of children's analogy reasoning enables educators to foster students’ analogical reasoning. It has proposed by some researchers that providing a systematic guide for children in analogy can help them develop a powerful reasoning system and promote a deeper understanding of concepts in different disciplines. Language labels can help children focus on the similarity and shift from perceptual similarity to relational similarity, which are proved to be an effective way to facilitate children’s analogical reasoning. There exists another way to help children in analogical reasoning besides language labels. It was proved that the use of physical object representation of the relations is as useful as language labels to 4 years old children in analogical reasoning. Further studies?in children’s analogical reasoning can conduct in many perspectives. Firstly, the interaction between working memory and inhibitory control is still uncertain. Appropriate and uniform experimental materials can be used to further explore the interaction mechanism between inhibitory control and working memory. Secondly, according to Sternberg (1977), successful analogical reasoning requires four sub-processes: encoding, inference, mapping,?and application. There are few studies about the encoding and inference of analogy reasoning at present, which requires further exploration. Lastly, it has been demonstrated that Project-fist strategy is conducive in analogical reasoning. Investigating the use of analogical reasoning strategies for intervention can be a potential direction, and the relationship between different analogical strategies and intervention is worth further discussion.

Key words: analogical reasoning, children, influence factors, intervention, language label, physical representation

摘要: 类比推理这一重要认知能力能够帮助儿童在未经历过的复杂情况下进行推断和学习。近年来研究者主要从行为研究、计算机模型和眼动技术的角度探究了儿童抑制控制和工作记忆在类比推理中的交互作用模式及类比推理策略对类比推理的影响。在此基础上,研究者围绕语言标签和物理表征两方面对儿童类比推理进行了干预研究。儿童类比推理的未来研究应着眼于改进研究方法、关注类比推理各加工阶段影响因素及加强儿童类比推理策略的干预应用研究。

关键词: 类比推理, 儿童, 影响因素, 干预, 语言标签, 物理表征