Arrows of Time in Early Childhood

Abstract

Three studies with 149 children were conducted to provide information about development of the perception of temporally unidirectional transformations, such as dropping blocks or breaking a cookie. Children 3.5 through 6.5 years of age compared forward and backward videotapes of events or made individual judgments of what would happen if the actions were attempted. Even children 3.5 to 4.5 years of age recognized the anomaly of backward versions of gravity and separation events. In addition, relatively few children predicted impossible transformations in the prediction task. The results show that young children, like adults, are sensitive to the unidirectional nature of varied transformations.

Publisher

Wiley

Publication Date

2-13-2003

Publication Title

Child Development

Department

Psychology

Document Type

Article

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00527

Language

English

Format

text

Link to Full Text

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