The development of children’s concepts of invisibility

1. The development of children’s concepts of invisibility Jacqueline D. Woolley The University of Texas Melissa A. McInnis The University of Alabama

3. Invisibility • Fantasy-Reality distinction • Present by age 3 • (Woolley, 1997) • Develops significantly between ages 3 and 7 • (Sharon & Woolley, 2004; Woolley & VanReet, 2006) • Appearance-Reality distinction • Present by age 3 • (Woolley & Wellman, 1990) • Develops significantly between ages 3 and 7 • (Flavell, Green, & Flavell, 1996; Flavell, Flavell, & Green, 1997; Moll & Tomasello, 2012)

4. Previous findingsInvisible real entities • Mental states • People have mental states even though one cannot see them (Wellman & Estes, 1989) • Germs • Germs can cause disease, even though they can’t be seen (Kalish, 1996) • Invisible particles • Sugar dissolved in water is still there even though one cannot see it (Au, Sidle, & Rollins, 1993; Rosen & Rozin, 1993)

5. Previous findingsInvisible not-real entities • By age 4 children think differently about invisible real entities like germs and fantastical entities (some of which are invisible; Harris, et al., 2006) • Children younger than 5 do not differentiate invisible agents from absent humans (Kiessling, Russell, Whitehouse, & Perner, 2013) • By age 5 children understand that events can be caused by invisible beings (Bering & Parker, 2006)

6. Hypotheses • Children may experience difficulty reasoning about invisibility • They may expect reality and visibility to co-occur • There may be development in children’s understanding of difference senses of invisibility • Some things are un-seeable because they are too small, whereas other things are invisible by definition or by nature • Children’s understanding of invisibility may be related to their ability to make the appearance-reality distinction

7. Items

8. Questions • Visibility question: “Can you see X with your eyes or can you not see it?” • Reality question: “What do you think, is X real or pretend?” • If “can’t see”: • Why can’t you see X? • Can scientists (or other experts) see X? • If we had a microscope/magnifying glass, could we see X? • If we had a lot of light, could we see X?

9. Visibility Responses

10. Reality Status Judgments

11. Visibility-Reality Performance

12. Children’s explanations for why they couldn’t see invisible entities • Invisibility • Explicit use of the word “invisible” • Physical • Reference to a physical property or location • Human production/sense • Reference to human ability or lack thereof • Reality status • Appealed to the real or pretend nature of the entity

13. Children’s explanations

14. Expert/technology questions:Affirmative responses to whether there was some way to see invisible entities • Germs: Almost all children (86-100%). • Air: 40% of 3-year-olds, 60% of 5-year-olds, and 24% of 7-year-olds. • Songs: 75% of 3-year-olds, 58% of 5-year-olds, and no 7-year-olds. • Not-real entities: 88% of 3-year-olds, 62% of 5-year-olds, and 18% of 7-year-olds.

15. Microscope question

16. Conclusions • Children’s concepts of visibility and reality status are intertwined. • Children’s ability to concurrently maintain representations of both visibility and reality status develops between 3 and 7 and is related to their ability to make the AR distinction. • By age 5, children are beginning to think about how invisible real and not-real entities differ. • By age 7, children recognize two different types of invisibility.

17. Thank you… • to Jonathan Lane for organizing this symposium • to NICHD (grant HD-30300 to Jacqueline D. Woolley). • to the children who participated at the Children’s Research Lab at U.T. • to Sweta Daru, Brittany Kinard, and Annette Leija for their help with data collection. • to Chelsea Cornelius and Gabe Lopez-Mobilia for editorial and conceptual feedback.

18. Relation between AR distinction and visibility-reality distinction • Visible-real (.92) > AR (.77) • AR = invisible-real (.70) • AR > visible-not real (.38) • AR > invisible-not real (.59)