Like many animals, human children are able to reason about the world in terms of cause and effect. Unlike other animals, human children grow up to possess highly abstract causal reasoning abilities that enable them to design skyscrapers, write screenplays, and develop conspiracy theories. What are the ontogenetic origins of humans’ powerful causal imagination?

There is a large literature demonstrating that toddlers and preschoolers are able to rapidly identify which of several causes is likely to have produced an effect they observe. This is Sherlock Holmes-style, “diagnostic” reasoning: given that a particular outcome has occurred, what could have made it the case? Solving a causal-explanatory mystery involves identifying candidate “suspects” (causal variables), and reasoning from evidence to infer whether they could be responsible for the effect of interest.

By contrast, considerably less attention has been paid to an early emerging ability to infer novel effects. This is also Sherlock Holmes-style reasoning... but the kind where he improvises a disguise using only a handkerchief and a feather, or uses his knowledge of physics to stop a bullet with a violin. Are young children able to generate novel solutions to novel problems? Can they figure out what to change in a novel causal system to bring about an outcome they’ve never seen?

In this talk I will describe my dissertation research and ongoing work that aims to answer the question, Where do new ideas come from?