Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Recursive loops in informal algorithms are difficult to formulate, even for na ̈ıve adults (Khemlani et al., 2013).Children can formulate algorithms that do not require loops (Bucciarelli et al., 2016), and anecdotal evidence suggests thatthey can understand loops. As there were no previous studies, we examined how they made deductions of the consequencesof loops, and how they abduced loops in creating informal algorithms in everyday language. We therefore tested fifth-gradechildren’s ability carry out both these tasks in algorithms that rearrange the order of cars on a toy railway track with onesiding. Experiment 1 showed that they could deduce rearrangements from algorithms containing loops, and Experiment 2showed that they could formulate at least some algorithms that contained loops. These abilities are the likely precursors to thecomprehension of recursion and to computer programming.