{"pk":31794,"title":"Constraints on Knowledge Acquisition: Evidence from Children's Models of the Earth and the Day/Night Cycle","subtitle":null,"abstract":"First, third, and fifth grade children were asked\nquestions about the shape of the earth and about the\nday/night cycle. The majority of the children used a\nsmall number of well-defined mental models of the\nearth, the sun, and the m o o n to explain the day/night\ncycle. T h e younger children formed initial mental\nmodels which explained the day/night cycle in terms\nof everyday experience (e.g., the sun goes d o w n behind\nthe mountains; clouds cover up the sun). T h e older\nchildren constructed synthetic mental models (e.g., the\nsun and m o o n revolve around the stationary earth\nevery 24 hours; the earth rotates in an \"up/down\"\ndirection with the sun and m o o n fixed at opposite\nsides) which are attempts to synthesize aspects of the\nscientific view with aspects of their initial models. A\nfew of the older children appeared to have constmcted a\nmental model of the day/night cycle similar to the\nscientific one. The children's models of the shape of\nthe earth provided strong \"second-order\" constraints on\ntheir models of the day/night cycle (e.g., children with\nflat earth models do not explain the day/night cycle in\nterms of the m o v e m e n t of the earth). The changes in\nthe children's models with age was explained in terms\nof the gradual reinterpretation of a set of\npresuppositions, s o m e of which are present early in\nthe child's life, and others which emerge later out of\npreviously acquired knowledge.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[],"section":"Submitted Presentations","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/12x8451p","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Stella","middle_name":"","last_name":"Vosniadou","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Athens","department":""},{"first_name":"William","middle_name":"F.","last_name":"Brewer","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Illinois","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"1993-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/31794/galley/22862/download/"}]}