{"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}
{"title":"Rewards Can Foster Response Execution and Response Inhibition in Young Children Diagnosed with ADHD","authors":"Alice Sader, Marco Walg, Nicola K. Ferdinand","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2110875","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2110875","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Children with ADHD show deficits in executive functioning, especially the ability to inhibit inadequate responses, and deficits in motivational processes due to dopaminergic dysfunctions. There is evidence that rewards can foster inhibition in children with ADHD. However, most studies examined a wide age range of children above 7 years of age, so almost nothing is known about inhibition and reward effects on inhibition in younger children. The primary goals of the present study were a) to examine response inhibition in young children with ADHD in a relatively narrow age range (5–8 years) in comparison to children without ADHD b) to investigate whether performance in an inhibition task can be fostered by rewards in this young age group. For this purpose, children with ADHD (n = 20) and control children (n = 20) were recruited from schools as well as pediatric, psychiatric, and psychological practices in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Children conducted a Go/NoGo task under a non-rewarded and a rewarded condition. Our findings demonstrate a generally decreased response inhibition in ADHD as compared to control children. Rewards led to improvements in response inhibition in both groups of children. However, in contrast to control children whose ability to inhibit increased with practice in both conditions, children with ADHD inhibition decreased over the course of the non-rewarded condition but was raised by the prospect of a reward at the start of the reward condition. Thus, it seems that already at this young age, German children without ADHD are better able to keep their inhibition ability up over time than children with ADHD.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"37 - 54"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41515543","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}
Rong Huang, E. Baker, Carmela Battista, Qingyang Liu
{"title":"Executive Function and Theory of Mind in Children Living in Poverty: A Short-term Longitudinal Study","authors":"Rong Huang, E. Baker, Carmela Battista, Qingyang Liu","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2110873","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2110873","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The early childhood years are critical for developing executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM). Prior literature suggests a robust relationship between EF and ToM; however, this relationship has seldom been investigated in children living in poverty. In addition, few studies have employed comprehensive ToM measures to explore how EF relates to different components of ToM. This study examined longitudinal relations between EF and ToM among 86 preschool children (3- to 5-year-old) attending Head Start programs in the United States. Children completed two EF tasks and a 5-task ToM battery twice, four months apart. Results showed that, for children living in poverty, early EF did not significantly predict later ToM as a composite after controlling for significant covariates. However, the emotionally salient component of ToM predicted children’s later Stroop performance, above and beyond several controls. Findings suggest that for impoverished children living in the U.S., the development of emotional perspective-taking may be particularly important for EF development compared to other components of ToM.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"23 1","pages":"751 - 775"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47686756","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}
S. Cruz, R. Cruz, A. Alcon, A. Sampaio, J. Merchán-Naranjo, E. Rodríguez, M. Parellada, A. Carracedo, M. Fernández-Prieto
{"title":"How Executive Functions Correlate with Intelligence in Children and Adolescents in Autism Spectrum Disorders","authors":"S. Cruz, R. Cruz, A. Alcon, A. Sampaio, J. Merchán-Naranjo, E. Rodríguez, M. Parellada, A. Carracedo, M. Fernández-Prieto","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2104283","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2104283","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTACT Dysexecutive syndrome has been consistently reported in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Particularly, impairments have been documented in working memory, inhibition, and mental flexibility. However, the relationship between executive impairments and intellectual functioning is far from clear in this population. This study aimed to investigate how executive functions (EF) are associated with intelligence in ASD. Children and adolescents with ASD (N = 69) were compared to typically developing (TD) individuals (N = 68), matched in chronological age and sex. The Wechsler Intelligence Scales were used to assess participants’ intelligence quotient (estimated IQ). EF – working memory, shifting, and inhibition – were assessed using the Digit Span, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Stroop Test, respectively. TD individuals outperformed ASD in all cognitive assessment measures. Correlation analysis showed that while for the ASD group intelligence was associated with shifting abilities, in the TD group the association was observed for working memory measures. Linear regression analysis supported that the association between intelligence and EF domains differed between groups, particularly regarding shifting abilities (interaction term significant), whereas working memory showed a similar trend in both groups (difference in effect size is non-significant). Results suggest that specific executive function domains are associated with ASD intellectual functioning and differ from TD individuals, which may be related to adaptive behavior outcomes.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"23 1","pages":"776 - 790"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47015558","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":"Steps in Theory-of-Mind Development in Hong Kong Cantonese-Speaking Children with and without Autism","authors":"Candice Chi-Hang Cheung, Yicheng Rong, Stéphanie Durrleman","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2100397","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2100397","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT It has been debated whether the progressive emergence of theory of mind (ToM) in autistic children is compatible with a ”delayed” or ”different” development model, and whether and how the sequential consolidation of ToM concepts is subject to cross-cultural variations in autistic and typically developing (TD) children. To study these questions, we examined ToM development in autistic children and TD children in Hong Kong (HK). Using an established five-step ToM scale, we measured five ToM abilities in 37 autistic children (M = 6.41 years) and 142 TD children (M = 5.81 years); the two samples were equivalent on verbal mental age. We found that the development of ToM abilities was delayed in autistic children relative to TD children. Moreover, the developmental sequence of ToM of autistic children also differed from that of TD children. Specifically, the sequence observed in autistic children was knowledge access (KA) > diverse desires (DD) > diverse beliefs (DB) > false belief (FB) > hidden emotion (HE), while TD children acquired DD before KA. Additionally, both autistic and TD children in HK mastered KA before DB like their peers from other Eastern countries, but in contrast to Western children who reportedly develop DB earlier than KA. This suggests that HK children are strongly influenced by Eastern culture despite growing up in an East-meets-West society","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"23 1","pages":"732 - 750"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47237407","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}