Developmental Changes in Active Learning of Transitive Relations.
Combining memories of related experiences is fundamental to the formation of generalizable knowledge. Past work has shown that the ability to integrate and reason about related events improves across childhood. However, little work has examined developmental changes in the ability to actively constr...
| Publicado en: | Developmental Psychology Vol. 62; no. 9; pp. 1673 - 1689 |
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| Autores principales: | , , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
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American Psychological Association
Sep2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=195791692&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 195791692 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00121649 DPS jtl: Developmental Psychology issn: 00121649 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2026 vid: 62 iid: 9 pid: 34 pub: American Psychological Association artinfo: ui: 195791692 10.1037/dev0002187 ppf: 1673 ppct: 16 formats: tig: atl: Developmental Changes in Active Learning of Transitive Relations. aug: au: Markant, Douglas B. Battisti, Antonella Ruggeri, Azzurra affil: Department of Psychological Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Istituto Nanoscienze Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Scuola Normale Superiore School of Social Sciences and Technology, Technical University Munich Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University MPRG iSearch, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany su: Italy Task performance Learning Decision making Child development Memory Cognition Children Research funding Experimental design Data analysis software sug: subj: Task performance Learning Decision making Child development Memory Cognition Children Italy Research funding Experimental design Data analysis software keyword: active learning memory integration relational learning transitive inference active learning memory integration relational learning transitive inference ab: Combining memories of related experiences is fundamental to the formation of generalizable knowledge. Past work has shown that the ability to integrate and reason about related events improves across childhood. However, little work has examined developmental changes in the ability to actively construct new relational knowledge by making decisions about how to study related materials. We used a transitive inference (TI) task to examine the active construction of relational knowledge in 7- to 17-year-old children (N = 107). We find that age-related improvements in relational inference are accompanied by an increasing preference for "chained" study, such that overlapping relations are studied in consecutive trials. Using computational models of transitive inference, we show that these developmental changes are consistent with a growing tendency to link individual relations together into a single mental structure while learning. This process is facilitated when children study premises in chained sequences. These findings suggest that exploratory study behaviors that promote relational reasoning emerge late in childhood, developing alongside the capacity to maintain and manipulate more complex mental representations. Public Significance Statement: Effective learning is not just about memorizing facts, but often requires linking ideas into generalizable knowledge. By examining how children choose to study related ideas in a transitive inference task, this study shows that older children increasingly adopt strategies that help them integrate separate experiences into a coherent mental representation. These findings highlight developmental changes in active learning that support flexible reasoning and knowledge building, skills that are crucial for learning and behavior in real-world contexts. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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