{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,3]],"date-time":"2026-09-03T05:40:14Z","timestamp":1788414014737,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":33,"publisher":"MIT Press","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,28]],"date-time":"2026-07-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1785196800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":208,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["direct.mit.edu"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,15]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Young children struggle in situations involving mere possibility, such as when a target object could be in one of two possible locations. This difficulty is often interpreted as a general limitation on children\u2019s ability to reason about possibility. We tested the hypothesis that a source of children\u2019s difficulty may be their early-emerging object representational architecture, which necessarily represents where an object is, but only optionally represents what an object is. Two- to 4-year-old US children (n = 138) were tasked with finding a target object in one of several possible containers, and we manipulated whether the location or the identity of the target was uncertain. At all ages, children were better able to find the target when there was uncertainty about \u201cwhat\u201d versus uncertainty about \u201cwhere\u201d. We suggest that children\u2019s object representational architecture can support uncertainty about identity but not location, and discuss implications for the development of possibility reasoning.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1162\/opmi.a.364","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,28]],"date-time":"2026-07-28T20:08:41Z","timestamp":1785269321000},"page":"951-962","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1162\/mitpressjournals.corrections.policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Children\u2019s Representations of Possibility: Uncertainty About \u201cWhat\u201d Is Easier Than Uncertainty About \u201cWhere\u201d"],"prefix":"10.1162","volume":"10","author":[{"given":"Esra Nur","family":"Turan-K\u00fc\u00e7\u00fck","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9088-2523","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Melissa M.","family":"Kibbe","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Center for Systems Neuroscience, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"281","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,15]]},"reference":[{"key":"2026072816083847600_bib33","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"105472","DOI":"10.1016\/j.cognition.2023.105472","article-title":"Three-year-old children\u2019s reasoning about possibilities","volume":"237","author":"Alderete","year":"2023","journal-title":"Cognition"},{"key":"2026072816083847600_bib1","first-page":"1508","article-title":"Object files encode possible object identities, but not possible locations","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society","author":"Brody","year":"2024"},{"issue":"1","key":"2026072816083847600_bib2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"3","DOI":"10.1016\/j.tics.2019.11.007","article-title":"Could it be so? 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