This research asks how concepts and larger causal beliefs systems, known as theories, interact in development. In doing so, it also asks how such patterns of development are relevant to general models of conceptual structure. One set of studies documents the development of coherent theoretical beliefs in the domain of biological thought. These studies show how different sets of properties may be most critical to the identity of biological kinds at different points in the preschool and elementary school years, and ask whether the youngest children use coherent biological theories to organize kinds or more general atheoretic metrics of similarity. These patterns of development are then contrasted to emerging knowledge of other biological phenomena such as inheritance, mechanisms of growth, disease, and physiology, with specific predictions about differing ways in which these areas of knowledge should be related. Other studies explore how relations between emerging theories and conceptual structure differ in natural kinds and artifacts. Among other tasks, children make inductions about properties, and explain malfunctions, anomalies and correlations. They are also presented with complex artifacts and engineered natural kinds so as to show how the distinctions between these two areas can become blurred. Finally, three studies test the more general model of conceptual and theoretical change as well as looking for certain biases in the causal beliefs underlying natural concepts in adults.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD023922-03
Application #
3324311
Study Section
Human Development and Aging Subcommittee 3 (HUD)
Project Start
1988-02-01
Project End
1993-01-31
Budget Start
1990-02-01
Budget End
1991-01-31
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
1990
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Cornell University
Department
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
City
Ithaca
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
14850
Keil, Frank C (2010) The Feasibility of Folk Science. Cogn Sci 34:826-862
Mills, Candice M; Keil, Frank C (2008) Children's developing notions of (im)partiality. Cognition 107:528-51
Mills, Candice M; Keil, Frank C (2005) The development of cynicism. Psychol Sci 16:385-90
Danovitch, Judith H; Keil, Frank C (2004) Should you ask a fisherman or a biologist?: Developmental shifts in ways of clustering knowledge. Child Dev 75:918-31
Mills, Candice M; Keil, Frank C (2004) Knowing the limits of one's understanding: the development of an awareness of an illusion of explanatory depth. J Exp Child Psychol 87:1-32
Kim, Nancy S; Keil, Frank C (2003) From symptoms to causes: diversity effects in diagnostic reasoning. Mem Cognit 31:155-65
Lutz, Donna J; Keil, Frank C (2002) Early understanding of the division of cognitive labor. Child Dev 73:1073-84
Gutheil, G; Vera, A; Keil, F C (1998) Do houseflies think? Patterns of induction and biological beliefs in development. Cognition 66:33-49
Keil, F C; Smith, W C; Simons, D J et al. (1998) Two dogmas of conceptual empiricism: implications for hybrid models of the structure of knowledge. Cognition 65:103-35
Barrett, J L; Keil, F C (1996) Conceptualizing a nonnatural entity: anthropomorphism in God concepts. Cogn Psychol 31:219-47

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