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Development , awareness and inductive selectivity . Two studies examined whether adults and children could learn to make context-dependent inferences about novel stimuli and the role of awareness of context cues in such learning . Participants were trained to match probes to targets on the basis of shape or color with the relevant dimension shifting according to item context . A selective induction test then examined context-dependent responding in a more complex matching task . Awareness of the role of context was assessed using a behavioral task and explicit questions . Experiment 1 showed that after training with the procedure described by Sloutsky and Fisher ( 2008 ) , only a minority of adults showed evidence of context-dependent responding in the selective induction test . Experiment 2 used a modified training protocol that promoted attention to context cues . This led to reliable selective induction in a majority of adults and a sizeable proportion of 4- to 6-year-olds . Crucially , in both age groups , selective induction was dependent on awareness of context . Hence , children as young as 4 can learn to make selective inferences about novel stimuli , but only when they are aware of the relevant context cues . These results challenge previous claims that selective induction in children is the product of implicit learning .
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Intervention_Educational
trained to match probes to targets
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Intervention_Physical
induction test
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Intervention_Educational
behavioral task
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Intervention_Educational
explicit questions
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Intervention_Educational
training
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Intervention_Educational
modified training protocol
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Outcome_Mental
selective induction
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Outcome_Mental
selective induction
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Participant_Age
adults
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Participant_Age
children
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Participant_Age
4- to 6-year-olds