transitive inference task
a type of task used to assess children’s ability to make transitive inferences, that is, to infer the relationship between two concepts or objects based on earlier acquired information. In one example, a series of sticks is arranged in order of increasing length (e.g., A, B, C, D, E); if children know that D > C and C > B, they will make a correct transitive inference if they state that D > B, even though they have never seen these two sticks together.