From infancy, children show heightened interest in events that are impossible or improbable, relative to likely events. Do young children represent impossible and improbable events as points on a continuum of possibility, or do they instead treat them as categorically distinct? Here, we compared 2- and 3-y-old children’s learning (N = 335) following nearly identical events that were equi-probable, improbable, or impossible. We found that children learned significantly better following impossible than possible events, no matter how unlikely. We conclude that young children distinguish between the impossible and the merely improbable.

中文翻译：

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年幼的孩子区分不可能和仅仅不可能


从婴儿期开始，儿童就对相对于可能的事件而言，对不可能或不可能的事件表现出更高的兴趣。年幼的孩子是将不可能和不可能的事件表示为可能性连续体上的点，还是将它们视为截然不同的点？在这里，我们比较了 2 岁和 3 岁儿童在等概率、不可能或不可能的几乎相同的事件后的学习情况 （N = 335）。我们发现，无论多么不可能，儿童在不可能的事件之后的学习效果明显优于可能的事件。我们得出的结论是，年幼的孩子区分了不可能的和仅仅是不可能的。