Can 1- and 2-year-old toddlers learn causal action sequences?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Toddlers can learn cause-effect relationships between single actions and outcomes. However, real-world causality is often more complex. We investigated whether toddlers (12- to 35-month-olds) can learn that a sequence of two actions is causally necessary, from observing the actions of an adult demonstrator. In Experiment 1, toddlers saw evidence that performing a two-action sequence (AB) on a puzzle-box was necessary to produce a sticker, and evidence that B alone was not sufficient. Toddlers were then given the opportunity to interact with the box and retrieve up to five stickers. Toddlers had difficulty reproducing the required two-action sequence, with the ability to do so improving with age. In Experiment 2, toddlers saw evidence that performing a single action (B) was sufficient to produce an effect (i.e., a sequence was not causally necessary). Toddlers were more successful and performed fewer sequences in Experiment 2, suggesting some sensitivity to the sequential causal structure.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".