Illusory correlations in preschoolers

People form illusory correlations (ICs) such that they will at times perceive a relationship between variables even when no such relationship exists. Three experiments with undergraduates (N = 20), 5-year-olds (N = 71), and 3-year-olds (N = 52) explored the origins of ICs: When, and under what conditions, does the disposition to form ICs emerge? Results showed that, like adults, 5-year-olds formed ICs for large samples of evidence (Experiment 1), but 5-year-olds did not do so for smaller samples (Experiment 2). Three- and 5-year-olds formed ICs for small samples when the evidence was presented in a way that promoted an attention shift from one category to the other during category learning (Experiment 3). These results suggest ICs are due, in large part, to limitations in processing capacity and biases in attentional learning mechanisms. The results provide insights regarding the conditions that influence children's ability to detect and use regularities in the available input and thus have implications for understanding their performance on a broad range of cognitive tasks.