Cognitive development is marked by age-related improvements across a number of domains, as young children perform worse than their older counterparts on most tasks. However, there are cases in which young children, and even infants, outperform older children and adults. So when, and why, does being young sometimes confer an advantage? This article provides a comprehensive examination of the peculiar cases in which younger children perform better. First, we outline the specific instances in which younger is better across domains, including mastering language, using probabilistic information, detecting causal relations, remembering certain information, and even solving problems. We then examine how children’s reduced cognitive abilities, ongoing brain development, more limited prior knowledge, and heightened tendency to explore benefits their learning, reasoning, perception, and memory from a mechanistic perspective. We hold that considering all of these factors together is essential for understanding the ways in which children’s learning is unique and that science has much to learn from a careful consideration of childhood.

认知发展的特点是在许多领域与年龄相关的改进，因为幼儿在大多数任务上的表现比年长的同龄人差。但是，在某些情况下，幼儿甚至婴儿的表现优于年龄较大的儿童和成人。那么，什么时候，为什么，年轻有时会带来优势呢？本文对年幼儿童表现更好的特殊情况进行了全面检查。首先，我们概述了年轻人在各个领域表现更好的具体实例，包括掌握语言、使用概率信息、检测因果关系、记住某些信息，甚至解决问题。然后，我们研究了儿童认知能力下降、大脑持续发育、先验知识有限、从机械的角度来看，探索倾向的增强有利于他们的学习、推理、感知和记忆。我们认为，综合考虑所有这些因素对于理解儿童学习的独特方式至关重要，科学可以从对童年的仔细考虑中学到很多东西。