Four-Year-Olds' Understanding of Pretend, Forget, and Know: Evidence for Propositional Operations

Abstract

MACNAMARA, JOHN; BAKER, ERICA; and OLSON, CHESTER L. Four-Year-Olds' Understanding of Pretend, Forget, and Know: Evidence for Propositional Operations. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1976, 47, 62-70. These investigations deal with the ability of 4-year-olds to understand the propositional components (presuppositions and assertions) of semantically complex propositions and to deduce what such components together imply. Evidence of a substantial understanding of complex propositions is adduced. Evidence is also adduced that the children were able to perform propositional operations at the level of formal (or propositional) logic. It is argued that natural language is a particularly rich field in which to study the structure of intelligence in young children.