From infancy to early adolescence, Children experience rapid developmental progression. So much so that many parents realize how remarkable yet challenging their toddler’s growth is from age two to age three.

Recently, cognitive psychologists from Harvard University sought to analyze this progression further– conducting a study that explored when young children develop an ability to take alternative possibilities into account during planning.

They first focused on one experiment in which there were two prizes. The first prize was placed inside a single container; meanwhile, the second prize was placed in one of two other containers.

So, the study participants– who were three years old– were able to pick from the first container, which definitely contained a prize, or from the pair, with each container having a fifty percent chance of holding a prize.

Interestingly, though, the toddlers still chose one of the paired containers about half of the time– even though one of them might have been empty. However, the “might” in this scenario is particularly important.

The researchers ultimately found that at three years old, children do not use Possibility Concepts such as “might.”

In turn, they are unable to represent the fact that one of the two paired containers might or might not hold a prize.

“Young children make surprisingly unwise decisions in the face of multiple possibilities,” the researchers noted.

In fact, two-year-olds chose wisely about fifty percent of the time; meanwhile, three-year-olds picked wisely about sixty percent of the time.

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And since this behavior was so replicable, the research team began to wonder what caused this decision process. After all, the kids knew that there was definitely a prize located in the single container.

Yet, they mentally simulated the prize being in one of the other two paired containers. Then, since they were unable to use Possibility concepts, the children regarded this simulation as a concrete fact rather than a possibility.

So, the scientists hypothesized three different ways in which this computational error could have been caused.

First, the children might favor the left or right side. Second, the toddlers might only be able to focus on one prize during the experiment set-up phase. Finally, the children might have just been choosing prizes completely at random.

Then, through three studies, the researchers set out to test their hypotheses.

Study 1

The researchers first conducted a study intended to replicate their earlier findings: the fact that three-year-olds choose the correct container sixty percent of the time.

So, a group of twenty three-year-olds participated in a total of four test trials– selecting one box in order to receive whatever was inside. These results were very similar to the previous study.

However, after analyzing the results using a Bayesian generalized linear mixed model, the team concluded that the toddlers were not choosing containers at random.

In turn, the team’s following two studies were performed to judge three different hypotheses. First, young children do deploy possibility concepts.

Second, that children deploy minimal possibility representations. And third, that toddlers use these low-level strategies during a three-container task.

Study 2

During this study, the toddlers were taught that they could throw away one box in order to receive the contents of the two remaining boxes. So, children who deploy possibility concepts, or minimal possibility representations, should hypothetically throw away one of the paired containers most of the time.

The researchers also noted that if the children were truly choosing at random, then the results should have been similar to the first task.

However, they were not. In fact, the children actually threw away one of the paired containers– which ruled out the hypothesis that the toddlers were using a low-level strategy.

Study 3

This final study, which included twenty-four toddlers who were three years old, included eight different trials.

In each trial, the children were instructed to throw one box away; then, they could choose between one of the two remaining containers.

Similar to the second study, the toddlers threw away one of the paired containers more often than expected.

Then, the wise decision would have been to select the single container– since the remaining paired box might or might not have contents inside.

However, the children only selected the single container fifty percent of the time. So, this evidence indicates that the toddlers were deploying minimal possibility representations instead of more robust possibility concepts– such as “might” and “might not.”

Now, the researchers suggest that children might have possibility concepts; however, performance issues present during the tasks might be preventing children from using them.

This means that future studies, which develop unique tasks with various performance demands, are needed to explore that possibility.

To read the study’s complete findings, which have since been published in PNAS, visit the link here.

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