This study investigated preschool children’s learning from expository and fantastical narrative books and whether the children would show a tendency for learning from expository books in cases of conflicting information. Over three testing sessions, 71 3- and 5-year-olds were individually read one expository book and one fantastical narrative book. These books contained four types of information units: narrative-only, expository-only, conflicting, and consistent. Children were asked questions that tapped these information units. Results showed a main effect of age, with 5-year-olds learning more information from both books than 3-year-olds. When the information in the narrative and expository books conflicted, 5-year-olds showed a tendency to report information from the expository book, but 3-year-olds were at chance level for prioritizing information learned from either book.

本研究调查了学龄前儿童从说明性和奇幻叙事书籍中学习的情况，以及在信息冲突的情况下，儿童是否会表现出从说明性书籍中学习的倾向。在三个测试阶段，71 名 3 岁和 5 岁儿童分别阅读了一本说明书和一本奇幻叙事书。这些书籍包含四种类型的信息单元：仅叙述、仅说明、冲突和一致。孩子们被问到利用这些信息单元的问题。结果显示了年龄的主要影响，5 岁的孩子从两本书中学到的信息比 3 岁的孩子多。当叙述性书籍和说明性书籍中的信息发生冲突时，5 岁儿童倾向于报告说明性书籍中的信息，而 3 岁儿童则有机会优先考虑从任何一本书中学到的信息。