Rb. Ricco et al., CHILDRENS JUDGMENTS OF CERTAINTY AND UNCERTAINTY ON A PROBLEM WHERE THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS DIFFER IN LIKELIHOOD, The Journal of genetic psychology, 158(4), 1997, pp. 401-410
In the present study, the authors adapted a task introduced by Piaget
(1987) to assess children's appreciation of indeterminacy under condit
ions in which the possible solutions to a problem are not equally like
ly. The task involved identifying or predicting the number of chips th
at must be drawn from a box in order to determine its contents with ce
rtainty. Children 7 through 12 years old were presented with this task
and with Pieraut-Le Bonniec's (1980) box task (a standard measure of
the ability to distinguish determinate from indeterminate conditions).
The tasks produced parallel developmental functions, although there w
as some indication that appreciating indeterminacy was easier on Piage
t's problem than on the standard task. Information about likelihoods d
id not influence children's judgments of certainty and uncertainty. In
general, recognizing that a problem is determinate precedes recogniti
on of indeterminacy, which, in turn, precedes success at pre dieting t
he moves needed to establish certainty on a problem.