Understanding Inference as a Source of Knowledge: Children's Ability To Evaluate the Certainty of Deduction, Perception, and Guessing.

Three experiments investigated children's understanding of inference as a knowledge source. Most 4- to 6-year-olds did not rate a puppet as more certain of a toy's color after the puppet looked at the toy or inferred its color than they did after the puppet guessed the color. Most 8- and 9-year-olds distinguished inference and looking from guessing. (Author/KB)