Decision making and logical deductions in early‭ ‬childhood‭ ‬when dealing with the quantifier‭ ‬“for all‮”‬

Dr. Amal Sharif-Rasslan

In natural language, there is a necessity for logical connectives, such as “and״ and “or,״ and in quantifiers, such as “all״ and “exists/there is/are.״ In this study, we investigate the decision-making and logical reasoning processes among young children, specifically when dealing with logical deduction based on the quantifier “all״. Two hundred and seventy-eight kindergartens and first- and second-grade pupils participated in the study, (age range 4-8 years). We report on a problem worded as follows: “All of Roni׳s red shirts are in the closet. Is Roni wearing a red shirt or a green shirt now?״

The findings of this study show that about fifty percent of the children arrived at the correct decision about Roni׳s shirt colour, with older children giving a higher percentage of correct answers: a reasonable expectation given that children are developing their cognitive abilities. In addition, the findings of this study do suggest that there is a very strong significant correlation between decision making and the rationale given by children, and this is influenced by three predominant factors: environmental, preferences, and intuition.

The principal conclusion from this study is that there are parameters that affect the logical reasoning in early childhood: environment, intuition, and preferences. In addition, young children may use abductive reasoning when required to deal with quantifier-based problems, but this only occurs in the case of an incorrect decision.