Despite the well-established literature on explanation in early childhood, little is known about what constrains children's explanations. State change and negative outcomes were examined as potential explanatory biases in the domain of naïve biology, extending upon previous work in the domain of naïve physics. In two studies, preschool children (N = 70, 3- to 5-year-olds) were informed of the distinct health outcomes of characters in four between-subjects conditions (i.e., becoming ill, recovering from illness, continuous health, and continuous illness) and were asked to provide explanations. Whereas children in both studies provided relevant information for health outcomes, they more often explained outcomes that included a salient health-state change. Presence of a state change also influenced the interpretation of potentially relevant information and improved memory for health outcomes. We discuss how biases in children's explanations constrain children's reasoning and may exacerbate difficulties with reasoning about important health-related topics such as illness prevention.

中文翻译：

---

检查幼儿生物推理中的解释性偏差

尽管关于幼儿期解释的文献已经很完善，但对限制儿童解释的因素知之甚少。状态变化和负面结果被视为朴素生物学领域中潜在的解释偏差，扩展了先前在朴素物理学领域的工作。在两项研究中，学龄前儿童（N = 70，3 至 5 岁）被告知角色在四种对象间条件（即生病、疾病康复、持续健康和持续健康）中的不同健康结果。病）并被要求提供解释。虽然两项研究中的儿童都提供了有关健康结果的相关信息，但他们更多地解释了包括显着健康状态变化的结果。状态变化的存在也影响了对潜在相关信息的解释和对健康结果的改善记忆。我们讨论了儿童解释中的偏见如何限制儿童的推理，并可能加剧有关重要健康相关主题（如疾病预防）的推理困难。