Development of deductive reasoning: Differences between factual and counterfactual conditionals.

Abstract

In this work we study how adults and children make inferences about what could have occurred but did not occur (counterfactual). For this, a deductive reasoning task with real conditional statements (or factual, of the type "if you run, you'll arrive on time") and a task contrary to reality (or counterfactual, of the type "if you had run, you would have arrived on time") are utilized and applied to participants of different ages: elementary school children of first and second grade (M=7 years), elementary school children of fifth and sixth grade (M=11 years), high school adolescents of third and fourth grade (M=15 years), and adult university students (M=23 years). Two studies were performed; the first with adults (60 participants) and the second with children of different age-groups (7, 11 and 15 years, a total of 156 participants). As many children as adults showed different patterns of inference when presented with factual and counterfactual conditionals. Comparing the frequency of inferences between adults and children, differences were observed only for the factual conditional, not for the counterfactual conditional. The results are discussed, considering mainly the Mental Models Theory.