Thinking of the world in mechanistic terms—how things work—is both cognitively natural and motivating for humans from the preschool years onward. Mechanisms have distinct structural properties that go far beyond mere causal facts. They typically contain layers of causal clusters and the systematic interactions between those clusters that give rise to the next level up. Following developments in the philosophy of science and studies on children’s questioning behaviors, recent research shows that, from an early age, people appreciate the informational and inductive potential of mechanistic information. People selectively notice and choose mechanistic explanations as especially useful opportunities for learning; but they also soon forget the details of what they encounter. We argue that enduring cognitive abstractions from such details provide powerful ways of accessing and evaluating expertise in other people.

从机械学角度思考世界（事物如何运作）既是认知上的自然现象，也是从学前开始对人类的激励。机制具有明显的结构特性，远远超出了单纯的因果事实。它们通常包含因果群集的层次，以及这些群集之间的系统性相互作用，这些相互作用导致了下一个层次的提升。随着科学哲学的发展和对儿童提问行为的研究，最近的研究表明，从很小的时候开始，人们就开始欣赏机械信息的信息和归纳潜力。人们选择性地注意到并选择机械的解释是学习的特别有用的机会；但是他们也很快忘记了遇到的细节。