幼児の物語読解における感情理解

動機を示す文の位置が理解に及ぼす効果

抄録

Two hypotheses have been suggested to explain why young children cannot adequately understand the emotional states of characters in narratives: a) they tend to ignore information about motives and make judgments based on information about outcomes, or b) they make judgments based only on information that is most easily obtained in the absence of detailed analyses. In this study, I examine both hypotheses with a sample of 27 children in their final year of kindergarten. By changing the position of a “reversal sentence” that contains information about motives, I established two conditions: a “prior-location condition” and a “post-location condition”. The results of categorizing responses indicated that the children did not make judgments based on information about outcomes. However, their judgments were not influenced in either the prior -or post-location conditions. This finding supports the hypothesis that failures of young children to understand the emotional states of characters are due to insufficient analyses of details. Furthermore, error analysis suggested that difficulties with integrating contradictory propositions also cause errors in understanding the emotional states of characters.