Kids as young as 4 innately use sorting algorithms to solve problems

Children under the age of 4 are able to find effective solutions to complex problems, such as independently invent the sorting algorithms developed by computer scientists. Scientists standing behind the conclusion say that these skills appear much earlier than previously thought, and should lead to a rethinking of development psychology.

Experiments conducted by the Swiss psychologist Jin Piaget And widely popularized in the 1960s asked children to physically sort the collection of sticks in length, the task called Sero. His tests showed up to about 7 years, children did not use structured strategies; They approached the problem with dirty ways through trial and errors.

But a new study Khuwven Alex Yang And his colleagues from the University of California at Berkeley show that the minority of even 4-year-old children can develop algorithmic solutions for the same task, and by 5 years more than a quarter are capable of the same.

“Maybe we did not give children enough loans,” says Yang. “We need to delve a little into what children actually do, their ability to reason.”

In the experiment, the team asked 123 children aged 4 to 9 years to sort a series of digital images of rabbits in height. Initially, they were able to see rabbits in the group and compare their heights directly, and all the children were able to order them correctly.

But later the heights of all rabbits were hidden, and the only way to compare them is to choose two at a time. When choosing, the children were told whether the rabbits were already in the correct order or whether they were incorrectly, and in this case, the rabbits switched automatically after viewing. This made the children come up with a new strategy for their order, unable to see the whole group at the same time.

Researchers searched for evidence that children use well -known solutions by searching for their sequence of comparisons to prove the use of existing algorithms. The team discovered in general, the children still performed much higher than the chance – indeed, they independently discovered at least two effective algorithmic solutions to the problem of sorting in the field of computer sciences: The choice of sorting And Shaker SortField

In 34 percent of tests, children used the sequence of comparisons, which suggested what they used – at least for a while – a well -known sorting algorithm. In 110 tests of the total number 667, conducted, Children used sorting selection, and in 141 tests they used Shaker Sort. In another 21 test, they used a combination of two algorithms. In total, 67 out of 123 children used at least one identified algorithm, and 30 children used both strategies at different points of the experiment.

But the number of children using the algorithm to solve problems, of course, was associated with age. Only 2.9 percent of 4-year-olds used the identified algorithm, while it increased to 25.5 percent for 5-year-olds and 30.7 for 6-year-olds. By 9 years, more than 54 percent of children used the identified algorithm.

“There is a long story of piaget turning,” says Andrew Brener At the University of Birmingham in the UK. Brener says that he considers Piaget as a genius who revolutioned in the psychology of development and put forward the stages that pass when the children study the world, but admits that he was “not a fantastic experimentalist”, and he often conducted poor tests without proper control. “People began to indicate that children can do what he said, what they could not do is much younger.”

In fact, in recent decades, he gradually showed that Piaget had the right idea of ​​childhood development, but was a little pessimistic about the age at which the children went through this process. And this new study adds evidence to this weight. But it is interesting that he focuses on the series, which, according to Bremner, was one of the last remaining and most stubborn Piaget experiments that could be applied to younger children than previously considered.

“Children can demonstrate success in this task in this particular context much earlier than we predicted,” says Brener. “Thus, they do not just turn to the world as a kind of empty line, but apply strategic approaches to the methods with which they try to solve problems.”

Sam VAS At the University of East London, Great Britain, says that Piaget believes that children should create a thorough understanding of complex systems before they can develop strategies for working with them, but this is increasingly considered unnecessary.

“This study is part of a great wave of psychology, which challenges the idea that to create behavior that looks complicated, you must have complex thoughts and understanding that underlie them,” says VAS. “In fact, as this study shows, you can create a behavior that looks complicated, based on a much more economical set of rules. ”