REALITY OR FANTASY:
ITS EFFECT ON DEDUCTIVE REASONING
Abstract
Many studies have shown the importance of mode of
presentation in tasks aimed at evaluating cognitive performance.
In three experiments concerning the understanding of syllogistic
problems whose content runs counter to subjects' practical world
knowledge, we examined the hypothesis that the presence of the
toys in a make-believe condition, would significantly improve children's
performance, since encoding of the premisses would be facilitated.
Experiments I, II and III showed that, as in the study of Dias
& Harris (submited), children's performance was significantly better
when the premisses were presented in a make-believe play mode
rather than in the standard verbal mode. The make-believe context
of play is what facilitates children's reasoning, when the premisses
of the problems run counter to their experience.
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References
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