A central component of evaluating others as sources of information involves estimating how much they know about different domains: one might be quite knowledgeable about a certain domain (e.g., clocks), but relatively ignorant about another (e.g., birds). Estimating one's domain knowledge often involves making inferences from specific instances or demonstrations, with some suggesting broader knowledge than others. For instance, an American who demonstrates knowledge of an unfamiliar country like Djibouti likely knows more about geography as a whole compared to an American who demonstrates knowledge of a more familiar country like Canada. The current studies investigate the extent to which one potentially salient kind of knowledge - mechanistic knowledge - signals greater domain knowledge as a whole. Across four developmental studies, we find that both adults and children as young as six think that those who possess mechanistic knowledge about a basic level artifact category (e.g., clocks) are more knowledgeable about its superordinate level category (e.g., machines) than those with factual non-mechanistic knowledge (Studies 1a and 2a). We also find an analogous, yet delayed pattern with biological categories (Studies 1b and 2b). Together, these studies demonstrate that even young children, who possess little mechanistic knowledge themselves, nevertheless have a sophisticated sense of how knowledge of mechanism generalizes across related categories.

中文翻译：

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儿童和成人可以选择性地概括机械知识。

评估他人作为信息源的一个重要组成部分是估算他们对不同领域的了解程度：一个领域可能对某个领域（例如时钟）非常了解，而对另一个领域（例如鸟类）则相对不了解。估算一个领域的知识通常涉及从特定的实例或演示中进行推论，其中一些表明比其他更广泛。例如，与一个对一个熟悉的国家（例如加拿大）的知识的美国人相比，一个对吉布提这样的陌生国家的知识的美国人可能更了解整个地理。当前的研究调查了一种潜在的显着知识（机械知识）在多大程度上表示整个领域知识的程度。在四项发展研究中，我们发现，无论是成年人还是六岁以下的孩子，都认为拥有基本级人造物类别（例如，时钟）的机械知识的人比具有上级非机械知识的人更了解其上级类别的东西（例如，机器）。 （研究1a和2a）。我们还发现了与生物类别类似的但延迟的模式（研究1b和2b）。总之，这些研究表明，即使自己本身并不了解机械知识的幼儿，也对机制知识如何在相关类别中泛化有着深刻的理解。机器）比那些具有非机械知识的人（研究1a和2a）。我们还发现了与生物类别类似的但延迟的模式（研究1b和2b）。总之，这些研究表明，即使自己本身并不了解机械知识的幼儿，也对机制知识如何在相关类别中泛化有着深刻的理解。机器）比那些具有非机械知识的人（研究1a和2a）。我们还发现了与生物类别类似的但延迟的模式（研究1b和2b）。总之，这些研究表明，即使自己本身并不了解机械知识的幼儿，也对机制知识如何在相关类别中泛化有着深刻的理解。