Can infants make transitive inferences?

Researchers have long been interested in the emergence of transitive reasoning abilities (e.g., if A>B and B>C, then A>C). Preschool-aged children are found to make transitive inferences. Additionally, nonhuman animals demonstrate parallel abilities, pointing to evolutionary roots of transitive reasoning. The present research examines whether 16-month-old infants can make transitive inferences about other people's preferences. If an agent prefers object-A over B (A>B) and B over C (B>C), infants seem to reason that she also prefers A over C (A>C) (Experiment 1). Experiment 2 provides indirect evidence that a one-directional linear ordering of the three items (A>B>C) may have helped infants to succeed in the task. These and control results present the first piece of evidence that precursors of transitive reasoning cognitive abilities exist in infancy.

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