THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONDITIONAL REASONING AND THE STRUCTURE OF SEMANTIC MEMORY

The present article examines 2 predictions concerning conditional reas oning in children derived from a revised version of Markovits's model of conditional reasoning. he first study examined the prediction that younger children (8 years of age) would have greater difficulty in res ponding correctly to premises where the antecedent was strongly associ ated with the consequent than to premises where the association was we aker; for example, ''If something is a car, then it has a motor'' shou ld be more difficult than ''If something is a refrigerator, then it ha s a motor.'' A total of 55 children In grades 2 and 3 (average age: 8 years) and 49 children in grades 5 and 6 (average age: II years) were given either 2 strongly associated problems or weakly associated count erparts. Results indicated that 8-year-olds did better on the weakly a ssociated problems than on the strongly associated problems, but there was no difference among the 11-year-olds. The second study examined t he prediction that younger children (8 years of age) would have greate r difficulty in responding correctly to causal premises (''If a rock i s thrown at a window, the window Mill break'') than to corresponding a d hoc premises (''A rock is something that can be used to break a wind ow''). A total of 53 children in grades 2 and 3 (average age: 8 years) and 49 children in grades 5 and 6 (average age: 11 years) were, given either 2 causal problems or ad hoc counterparts. Results indicated th at X-year-olds did better on the ad hoc problems than on the causal pr oblems, but there was no difference among the II-year-olds. These stud ies are interpreted as consistent with the idea that 1 major factor in the development of reasoning in this age level is the development of children's ability to explore their own knowledge base.