The ability to consider multiple possibilities forms the basis for a wide variety of human-unique cognitive capacities. When does this skill develop? Previous studies have narrowly focused on children's ability to prepare for incompatible future outcomes. Here, we investigate this capacity in a causal learning context. Adults (N = 109) and 18- to 30-month olds (N = 104) observed evidence that was consistent with two hypotheses, each occupying a different level of abstraction (individual vs. relational causation). Results suggest that adults and toddlers identified multiple candidate causes for an effect, held these possibilities in mind, and flexibly applied the appropriate hypothesis to inform subsequent inferences. These findings challenge previous suggestions that the ability to consider multiple alternatives does not emerge until much later in development.

中文翻译：

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幼儿学习并灵活应用多种可能性

考虑多种可能性的能力构成了各种人类独特认知能力的基础。这个技能什么时候发展？以前的研究只关注儿童为不相容的未来结果做准备的能力。在这里，我们在因果学习环境中调查这种能力。成人 ( N  = 109) 和 18 至 30 个月大 ( N = 104) 观察到的证据与两个假设一致，每个假设都占据不同的抽象级别（个体与关系因果关系）。结果表明，成人和幼儿确定了影响的多个候选原因，牢记这些可能性，并灵活地应用适当的假设来为后续推论提供信息。这些发现挑战了之前的建议，即考虑多种替代方案的能力要到开发的很晚才会出现。