Relations Between Executive Functions and Causal Reasoning in Young Children

Despite the early development of causal reasoning (CR), and its potential for shaping scientific literacy, we have little understanding of its structural origins. Specifically, is CR a unique capability that develops relatively independently or is it largely dependent on broader, more fundamental, cognitive abilities? Executive Functioning (EF) is an especially promising contributor to CR based on its already established role in related skills like planning and problem solving (e.g., Diamond, 2013). To begin exploring this potential relationship, we assessed 123 three (Mage = 3.42 years) and 64 five year olds’ (Mage = 5.36 years) performance on two CR tasks (counterfactual reasoning and causal inference), each of which we expected might be influenced in different ways by distinct EF skills. The counterfactual reasoning task (Guajardo & Turley-Ames, 2004) required children to generate alternative courses of action that would lead to different outcomes in fictional vignettes. The causal inference task (Das Gupta & Bryant, 1989) required children to compare pictures taken before and after a transformation (e.g., broken flowerpot and intact flowerpot) and to select a tool (e.g., glue) that could have caused it. We measured EF with three tasks: flanker (inhibition), count and label (working memory), and dimensional change card sort (cognitive flexibility). Finally, we measured children’s vocabulary and processing speed. To explore the relationship between EF and CR, we conducted a series of four linear regressions predicting causal inference and counterfactual reasoning ability in 3 and 5 year olds. Of all our measures, only vocabulary and inhibitory control emerged as significant predictors of causal inference ability for both 3 (βvocab = .04, p = .002, and βinhib = .04, p = .04) and 5 year olds (βvocab = .03, p = .01, and βinhib = .02, p = .04). Similarly, inhibitory control emerged as the only significant predictor of counterfactual reasoning in 3 year olds, βinhib = .03, p = .03. In contrast, for 5 year olds, working memory was the only significantly predictor of counterfactual reasoning, βWM = .71, p = .02. These results suggest that causal inference skills are stably supported by inhibitory control throughout early childhood. The story for counterfactual reasoning, however, appears to be somewhat more complex. Consistent with previous work (Beck, Riggs & Gorniak, 2009), inhibitory control supported counterfactual reasoning ability in our 3-year-old sample. However, inhibitory control did not significantly predict counterfactual reasoning in 5 year olds, it was supported by working memory instead. One explanation for this difference might have to do with the sophistication of children’s counterfactual reasoning skills at these different ages. Taken together, these results suggest that CR does not develop as a unique capacity, but instead likely relies on EFs that influence different CR skills in distinct ways across development. This represents an initial step in understanding early CR skills, which are promising contributors to emerging scientific literacy.