Action at an attentional distance: A study of children's reasoning about causes and effects involving spatial and attentional discontinuity

Abstract

AbstractSpatial discontinuity between causes and effects is a feature of many scientific concepts, particularly those in the environmental and ecological sciences. Causes can be spatially separated from their effects by great distances. Action at a distance, the idea that causes and effects can be separated in physical space, is a well‐studied concept in developmental psychology. However, the extant literature has focused largely on cases where causes and effects are separated in physical space but are contained within the same attentional space, for instance, how magnets on a table interact or how a lamp projected against an object creates a shadow despite the spatial gap between the lamp, object, and shadow. This paper considers the understanding of causes and effects that are separated both in physical and attentional space—a concept referred to here as “action at an attentional distance.” Findings from an in‐depth study of second, fourth and sixth graders' (n = 10) reasoning about action at an attentional distance are presented. Children tended to reason locally, but when they did reason about action at an attentional distance, they relied upon mechanism information and prior knowledge. The implications for causal explanation and instructional design are considered. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 1003–1030, 2015.