Santiago Vernucci, Ana García-Coni, E. Zamora, Rosario Gelpi-Trudo, María Laura Andrés, L. Canet‐Juric
{"title":"Age-related Changes in Task Switching Costs in Middle Childhood","authors":"Santiago Vernucci, Ana García-Coni, E. Zamora, Rosario Gelpi-Trudo, María Laura Andrés, L. Canet‐Juric","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2156514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2156514","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Cognitive flexibility refers to the ability to rapidly and accurately switch between tasks. It is regarded as a core dimension of executive functions and has been reported to improve during childhood and into early adulthood. For its evaluation, the task-switching paradigm is widely used. Switching between tasks or response sets imposes a series of costs on performance (i.e., mixing costs, global switch costs, local switch costs). There is less evidence analyzing switching performance in children than in other age groups, and few studies have specifically analyzed switching costs only in school-age children. In the present study, we aimed to analyze age-related changes in task switching in children aged 9–12 years old. We considered year-to-year changes in performance, specifically in response time based mixing costs, global switch costs, and local switch costs. To do this, we used a task switching measure to evaluate 231 children in Argentina, aged 9–12 years (M age = 10.94, SD = 0.88) who were aggregated into four age groups (9, 10, 11, and 12 years old). Results show consistent mixing costs, global switch costs, and local switch costs at each age. However, we did not find age-related differences in the magnitude of such costs. These results suggest that both the ability to maintain and select between two tasks, and to switch from one response set to another could be considered relatively constant during this period.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"420 - 437"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41389896","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Young Children’s Saving and Their Episodic Future Thinking","authors":"A. Tsui, C. Atance","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2156516","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2156516","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Children’s ability to save emerges during the preschool years, but little is known about the different forms saving takes (and whether these relate) and the mechanisms driving its development. Because research with adults suggests that different aspects of future orientation increase adults’ propensity to save, we explored whether, in a sample of 71 3- to 5-year-olds tested in a university laboratory in Ottawa, Canada, the ability to mentally pre-experience the future (or “episodic future thinking”) predicted saving in two different contexts. In the first, using a “Saving marbles” task, we assessed children’s capacity to save for a larger reward in the near future. In the second, using a newly developed “Saving candies” task, we assessed children’s capacity to save a certain amount of resource for a more remote future time point, without necessarily reaping a larger future reward. Children were also given two delay of gratification tasks to determine whether these related to saving. Performance on both saving tasks was significantly related after controlling for age in months and verbal ability (r = .25, p = .041), a finding that suggests some coherence in early saving behaviors. However, we detected no significant associations between saving and delay of gratification. A series of regression analyses showed that episodic future thinking, as measured by three different tasks, did not predict saving. Our discussion focuses on why the capacity to think about the future may not predict saving in early development, and suggests viable avenues for future research in this area.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"438 - 457"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44273738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Children’s Sensitivity to Difficulty and Reward Probability When Deciding to Take on a Task","authors":"J. Wang, E. Bonawitz","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2152032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2152032","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Sometimes we should persist to succeed. But other times it might be wiser to give up on the task at hand and focus our energy on something new. Knowing whether a task is worth the effort potentially requires multiple capacities, including sensitivity to one’s own likelihood to succeed on the current problem, the associated costs with continuing to pursue it, and evaluation of opportunities for reward from the success. But these capacities may be particularly challenging for young children. Here we ask how young children are sensitive to cognitive cost (one’s capacity and the opportunity cost of persisting) and reward probability (how likely they are to receive a reward when succeeding) when making decisions. Using a simple counting task, we showed that 4- to 5-year-old children in the US (N = 40, pre-registered) chose to give up more when the task was more difficult (and therefore cognitively more costly), especially when the probability of reward was low. These results extend previous findings and suggest the ability to consider and evaluate cognitive cost and reward probability may be in place by 4 years of age.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"341 - 353"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47765063","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ege Kamber, Tessa R. Mazachowsky, Caitlin E. V. Mahy
{"title":"The Emergence and Development of Future-Oriented Cognition in Toddlerhood: The Contribution of Cognitive and Language Abilities","authors":"Ege Kamber, Tessa R. Mazachowsky, Caitlin E. V. Mahy","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2149527","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2149527","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The development of children’s future-oriented cognition has become a popular research topic in the past two decades. Much of this research focuses on the preschool and middle childhood years, but very little is known about the future-oriented cognitive abilities of toddlers and young preschoolers. The present study investigated the emergence of future-oriented cognition in toddlerhood and explored its relation with cognitive (i.e., executive function, episodic memory, and self-concept) and language abilities (i.e., expressive vocabulary, parent-child talk, temporal word use, and time metaphor use). Parents (N = 205) of 2- to 3-year-old children residing in the United States participated in an online study in which they completed the Children’s Future Thinking Questionnaire (CFTQ) to assess their child’s future-oriented cognition in five key domains. Also, parent-report measures of executive function, self-concept, episodic memory, expressive vocabulary, parent-child talk, child’s temporal word use, and child’s use of time metaphors were administered. Children as young as 2-years-old demonstrated future-oriented abilities. However, parents of 2-year-olds had substantial missing data (e.g., “does not apply”), especially in the planning and prospective memory subscales of the CFTQ. Three-year-olds were rated higher than 2-year-olds on the planning and prospective memory subscales, but there were no differences in ratings for 2- and 3-year-olds on the saving, episodic foresight, and delay of gratification subscales. Episodic memory and time metaphor use were significant independent predictors of future-oriented cognition and thus, both abilities may play a fundamental role in the emergence of future-oriented cognition in young children.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"397 - 419"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49486644","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Children Prefer Familiar Fantasy, but not Anthropomorphism, in Their Storybooks","authors":"Sierra Eisen, Jessica Taggart, A. Lillard","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2144317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2144317","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Children’s storybooks often contain fantasy elements, from dragons and wizards to anthropomorphic animals that wear clothes, talk, and behave like humans. These elements can impact children’s learning from storybooks both positively and negatively, perhaps due in part to their ability to capture children’s interest and attention. Prior research has found that children prefer realistic to make-believe stories, but little is known about children’s preferences for anthropomorphic characters. The present study examines U.S. children’s preferences for fantasy and anthropomorphism in storybooks. Seventy-two 4- to 6-year-old children (M = 65.74 months, SD = 10.84 months) were presented with 10 pairs of books (fantasy/anthropomorphic vs. realistic) and asked to select which book they liked better and why. Children chose fantasy but not anthropomorphic animal stories significantly more often than expected by chance. Children’s preferences were not related to age or gender, and they most often justified their choices with references to the storyline. Implications for creating and selecting media are discussed, since children learn best when learning materials align with their interests.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"129 - 141"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44388112","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Private Speech during Problem-Solving: Tool Innovation Challenges Both Preschoolers’ Cognitive and Emotion Regulation","authors":"Sabine Breyel, S. Pauen","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2144319","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2144319","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The current study examined children’s spontaneous private speech during the vertical and the horizontal Tube Task to shed light on the cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes underlying tool innovation. Tool innovation is defined as solving a novel problem by using or modifying objects in a new and useful way without prior instructions. Relations between private speech of 3- to 4-year-old children (N = 89) and their task performance (i.e., success and latency to success) were analyzed using Bayesian statistics. Children who were successful at the task produced more metacognitive and cognitive speech compared to children who were unsuccessful at the task. Latency to success did not relate to (meta)cognitive speech, but it was associated to negative speech: Children who expressed negative emotions more often and who evaluated the task as being difficult needed more time to find a solution than children who used less negative speech. These findings indicate that cognitive skills and emotion regulation are closely related in preschoolers’ tool innovation.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"354 - 374"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48057952","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Role of Intentionality in Infants’ Prediction of Helping and Hindering","authors":"Shinchieh Duh, Elizabeth J. Goldman, Su-hua Wang","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2124259","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2124259","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The present research examined whether U.S. infants can recognize in others a pattern of helping or hindering after watching such behaviors across multiple scenarios. Infants at 17 months watched three familiarization events in which a person (recipient) failed to achieve various goals and another person (actor) always helped or hindered the recipient. In test, infants saw two events in yet another different scenario. In one event, the actor behaved consistently as before; in the other event, the actor behaved in the opposite way. In Experiment 1, the infants expected the helper to help the recipient again and were intrigued, as indicated by their prolonged looking, when the helper hindered the recipient. However, the infants did not form a clear expectation about the hinderer and looked equally at the two test events. Experiment 2 showed that when the intention to hinder was made more salient in familiarization, infants expected the hinderer to continue behaving so. Together, the present results underscore the role of intentionality in the process by which infants develop an expectation of others’ tendency to help or hinder another person.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"105 - 128"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48525641","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Influence of Context and Player Comments on Preschoolers’ Social and Partner-Directed Communicative Behavior","authors":"Alanna Valcke, Elizabeth S. Nilsen","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2119976","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2119976","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT To successfully navigate their social worlds, children must adapt their behaviors to diverse situations and do so in a fluid fashion. The current study explored preschool-aged children’s sensitivity to a gameplay context (cooperative/competitive) and messages from another (fictional) player (team-oriented/self-oriented) while distributing gameplay resources. To understand children’s approach to social behavior within these contexts, we focused on whether these factors affected 1) the number of resources children provided to the other player and 2) children’s verbal responses to other players. Children (4 to 6 years-old, N = 118) first provided verbal responses to audio messages, then completed a resource distribution task. Children’s verbal responses were influenced by both context and the other players’ messages; however, there was a greater influence of players’ messages in a competitive context. In contrast, children’s resource distributions were influenced primarily by the context (greater sharing of resources in the cooperative context). Children with better ToM showed a greater shift in their distributive behavior across conditions, specifically, distributing more items to the other players within a cooperative context relative to a competitive context. Also, within a cooperative context, children with better EF generated more prosocial comments for the other player. Together, the findings highlight the interplay between contextual and interpersonal factors with children’s cognitive skills for prosocial behavior.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"55 - 81"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42358858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
D. Schulz, Tobias Richter, Julia Schindler, W. Lenhard, Madlen Mangold
{"title":"Using Accuracy and Response Times to Assess Inhibitory Control in Kindergarten Children: An Analysis with Explanatory Item Response Models","authors":"D. Schulz, Tobias Richter, Julia Schindler, W. Lenhard, Madlen Mangold","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2119977","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2119977","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Inhibitory control is a core executive function that develops during childhood and is measured with tasks that require the inhibition of a dominant response. The current study examined the diagnostic value of using response accuracy and latency in a simple inhibitory control test, the computerized Pointing-Stroop Task (cPST), for kindergarten children. The cPST was completed by 135 children, ages 3 through 6 years with diverse national and cultural backgrounds. In explanatory response models, item difficulties and time intensities could be predicted very reliably by congruency and item position, with incongruent responses causing more errors and longer response latency. Moreover, the prediction of fluid intelligence (a close correlate of inhibitory control) from children’s performance in the cPST was enhanced by using response accuracy and response latency, which had a multiplicative effect, indicating that efficient (accurate and fast) inhibitory control is related to fluid intelligence. These results suggest that measuring the efficiency of inhibitory control in young children is a more appropriate assessment than using either response accuracy or response latency.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"82 - 104"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48866089","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tessa R. Mazachowsky, C. Atance, Joshua L Rutt, Caitlin E. V. Mahy
{"title":"Verbal Explanations and Item Choices as Joint Indices of Children’s Episodic Foresight","authors":"Tessa R. Mazachowsky, C. Atance, Joshua L Rutt, Caitlin E. V. Mahy","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2110874","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2110874","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The ability to project oneself forward in time and imagine a future episode, known as episodic foresight (EpF), is an important aspect of future thinking. EpF tasks often involve children choosing an item for a future episode, yet the degree to which future projection is required to succeed – versus memory or semantic associations – has been debated. Using existing data (N = 158 3-to 5-year-olds) that included two popular measures of EpF (the “Spoon” and Picture-book tasks), we systematically examined the extent to which an ostensibly future-directed action (i.e., selecting the item with future utility) mapped onto future orientation, episodicity, and self-projection (assessed through pronoun use) in children’s verbal explanations. For each task, we examined the effect of item choice (i.e., whether the item selected could be utilized in the future scenario or not) and age on children’s verbal explanations. Results showed that children’s explanations were more future-oriented and included more personal pronouns on the Picture-book task compared to the Spoon task but did not differ in episodicity or frequency of impersonal pronoun use. Further, age and item choice were significant predictors of future orientation and episodicity in children’s Picture-book task explanations (but results varied by trial). On the Spoon task, age and item choice significantly predicted children’s future orientation, while item choice significantly predicted episodicity. Our study highlights the correspondence between Canadian children’s item choices and explanations, while also showing that verbal explanations provide unique insight into the processes involved in EpF (e.g., future orientation, episodic processes, and self-projection).","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"17 - 36"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45579363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}