幼児における生物と生命に対する認識の発達

抄録

The purpose of this study was to investigate developmental changes in conceptions about living things and life in preschool children. Fifty- three preschoolers participated in the experiment. They were told to judge whether an object is a living things or not and whether an object has a life or not in each of 24 pictures consisting of elements of human, animals, plants, natural things, parts of the body, or inanimate objects. In addition, they were asked to judge whether to have the mind about same pictures. The results showed that, preschool children clearly distinguish neither the conceptions about living things nor life. This result was different from the distinction between an adult's living things concept and the concept of life. However, five-years old children regarded to have acquired folkbiology had the stricter criteria that distinguished animate and inanimate objects. On the other hand, four-years old children had the wider conception about living things and life. Moreover, preschool children had not understood the relation between the conceptions about living things and animated beings and the mental attribute yet.