Four experiments examined children's inferences about the relation between objects' internal parts and their causal properties. In Experiment 1, 4-year-olds recognized that objects with different internal parts had different causal properties, and those causal properties transferred if the internal part moved to another object. In Experiment 2, 4-year-olds made inferences from an object's internal parts to its causal properties without being given verbal labels for objects or being shown that insides and causal properties covaried. Experiment 3 found that 4-year-olds chose an object with the same internal part over one with the same external property when asked which object had the same causal property as the target (which had both the internal part and external property). Finally, Experiment 4 demonstrated that 4-year-olds made similar inferences from causal properties to internal parts, but 3-year-olds relied more on objects' external perceptual appearance. These results suggest that by the age of 4, children have developed an understanding of a relation between an artifact's internal parts and its causal properties.

中文翻译：

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内部的布利克特：学龄前儿童对内部和原因的推论


四项实验检验了儿童对物体内部部分及其因果属性之间关系的推论。在实验 1 中，4 岁的孩子认识到具有不同内部部分的物体具有不同的因果属性，并且如果内部部分移动到另一个物体，这些因果属性就会转移。在实验 2 中，4 岁的孩子从物体的内部部件推断出其因果属性，而无需给出物体的口头标签，也无需表明内部结构和因果属性是共变的。实验3发现，当被问及哪个物体与目标具有相同的因果属性（同时具有内部部分和外部属性）时，4岁的孩子选择了具有相同内部部分的物体，而不是具有相同外部属性的物体。最后，实验4表明，4岁的孩子从因果属性到内部部分做出了类似的推论，但3岁的孩子更多地依赖于物体的外部感知外观。这些结果表明，到 4 岁时，儿童已经了解了人工制品的内部部件及其因果特性之间的关系。