4〜7岁儿童依据对繁殖的朴素理解区分植物和非生物的认知发展

Cognitive Development of Distinctions between Plants and Nonliving Objects in Terms of Reproduction in 4─ to 7─Year─Olds

以152名4〜7岁儿童为被试，采用访谈和判断选择任务探查他们对植物繁殖的认知。结果发现，（1）4〜7岁儿童对植物繁殖的认知可分为不理解、部分理解和确切理解三种水平，儿童在人学后7岁能依据对植物繁殖的朴素理解区分植物与非生物；（2）通过降低材料难度和任务形式，可以有效地发屈年幼儿童的认知潜能，即大部分6岁学前儿童就能够理解植物繁殖；（3）任务难度的改变对于处于部分理解水平的5、6岁儿童影响更为显著：使他们在选择任务上的认知成绩优于访谈任务，对有明显果实和种子植物的认知优于明显果实和种子植物的认知。

The examination of younger children’s ability to distinguish living from nonliving things in terms of essentials biological properties such as growth， illness， autonomous action， inheritance and reproduction is all through the primary content of the naïve theory of biology. Past studies have shown that preschool children already can acquire understandings of these biological traits， and develop ontological distinctions and coherent causal explanatory frameworks. However， these studies focused mostly on the animal─inanimate distinction， rather than the distinction between animate objects（including both animals and plants）and inanimate objects Interpretations of these studies may also be confounded by such methodological differences as task difficulty， scoring criteria， choice of stimuli， type of data emphasized， and number of subjects used. The present study thus tried to examine younger children’s conception of plant reproduction by varying stimulus and task types so as to ma out children’s development of categorical knowledge.