Andreas Demetriou , Elena Kazali , George Spanoudis , Nikolaos Makris , Smaragda Kazi
{"title":"Executive function: Debunking an overprized construct","authors":"Andreas Demetriou , Elena Kazali , George Spanoudis , Nikolaos Makris , Smaragda Kazi","doi":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101168","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101168","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper explores the structure of executive functions, the common core underlying them, their development, and their relations with fluid reasoning. We reanalysed several studies which examined aspects of attention control, cognitive flexibility, working memory, relational integration, perceptual and inferential awareness, and reasoning from 4 to 16 years of age. We show that attention control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory are distinct but they share a common factor. This factor is completely identical with an integral construct standing for relational integration and awareness, suggesting that executive function does not have much beyond this construct. Developmental changes in executive function are heavily dependent on this construct. These changes are formalized in terms of series of syntactic rules defining executive possibilities from 4 to 16 years of age and in terms of a mathematical function defining how they relate with age. The theoretical and practical implications of this model are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48214,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Review","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101168"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-11-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142654564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Learning to live in the spatial world: Experience-expectant and experience-dependent input","authors":"Nora S. Newcombe","doi":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101166","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101166","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The core challenge in the study of cognitive development is to specify what infants bring to the task of learning, and how inborn biological processes interact with environmental input to propel change, often extending through childhood and adolescence. Ideally, we would delineate not only the typical developmental trajectory for important lines of development, but also the drivers of that trajectory, and how variation in those drivers leads to variation across children, families, communities, and cultures, and differences among adults in their patterns of skills. One of the chief challenges to achieving these goals is the difficulty of specifying relevant environmental input. This article considers how to assess input in spatial development, including for object-centered spatial skills, navigation, and learning fundamental geometric concepts, such as shape and angle. There is good evi that both experience-expectant and experience-dependent input matters, but a detailed and specific account of these processes is a task for the future.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48214,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Review","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101166"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142531985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Executive functions and social cognition from early childhood to pre-adolescence: A systematic review","authors":"Maram Badarneh, Reout Arbel, Yair Ziv","doi":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101167","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101167","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the last few decades, there has been growing interest in the association between executive functions (EFs) and social cognition in the childhood years, but it is not fully understood what aspects of EFs are linked to social cognition. Nor is the direction of these associations clear. This systematic review aimed to organize and clarify the existing knowledge about the links between EFs and social cognition in typically developing children and provide directions for future research. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines for empirical studies (<span><span>Moher et al., 2015</span></span>), we identified 133 concurrent, longitudinal, and intervention studies (reported in 125 papers) that met our criteria and were published between 1995 and 2024. There were four main findings. First, the core EFs were correlated with both cognitive and affective social cognition. Second, most studies examined the associations between EFs and theory of mind (ToM). Third, relativity few studies examined the association between hot EFs and social cognition. Fourth, limited longitudinal and intervention research has been conducted in this field, and while work generally tends to support the impact of EFs on social cognition, there are some contradictory findings on the causal direction between these constructs.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48214,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Review","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101167"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142531984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Judith Rich Harris and child development: 25 years after The Nurture Assumption","authors":"Brian B. Boutwell , Steven Pinker","doi":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101164","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101164","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This special issue of <em>Developmental Review</em> is in honor of Judith Rich Harris and the important contributions she made to the study of child development. Though she lacked traditional credentials and a university position, her work forced professional scholars to reconsider a foundational tenet in psychology. Contrary to both evidence and intuition, Harris argued that parents had no lasting influence on the personalities, preferences, and temperaments of their children. Her ideas were met with incredulity, and it would take time before reflexive doubt gave way to more careful consideration. In the decades following the publication of her most well-known book, <em>The Nurture Assumption</em>, her influence has spread well beyond the boundaries of her own field, developmental psychology. Contributors to this volume include criminologists, social psychologists, and behavior geneticists alike. The special issue represents an exciting opportunity to reflect on a remarkable psychologist and the legacy that endures from her unlikely scholarly career.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48214,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Review","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101164"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142444897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Chronicle of deceit: Navigating the developmental cognitive landscape from childhood fabrications to prolific adulthood artistry","authors":"Romain Decrop, Meagan Docherty","doi":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101165","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101165","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Lying is a universal, psychosocially complex behavior that society paradoxically views as morally reprehensible yet socially necessary. However, learning how and when to lie can be difficult, with a small proportion of the population failing to do so and lying prolifically into adulthood while suffering the consequences. Following a comprehensive review of the literature on the cognitive development of lying, including its normative and atypical features, this integrative work: 1) explains how maturations in theory of mind (ToM) and executive functioning (EF) are intertwined within developmental milestones of lying from childhood through adolescence, and 2) proposes unexplored etiologies surrounding how correlates of ToM, EF, and lying may lead to prolific lying in adulthood. Results reveal that in earlier childhood, the normative growth of ToM and EF increase the frequency and sophistication of lies, while their continued development into adulthood are integral to the desistance of dishonesty. Additionally, it appears that psychopathic traits (e.g., callous-unemotional traits, narcissism), intelligence, and attitudes towards lying may help identify different etiologies of atypical liars (i.e., prolific, pathological). This information for parents, educators, policy makers, and healthcare workers clarifies the natural age-based progressions of lying and highlights patterns of risks for prolonged, excessive lying.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48214,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Review","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101165"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142421295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Varieties of Number-Line Estimation: Systematic Review, Models, and Data","authors":"Jike Qin , Dan Kim , John E. Opfer","doi":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101161","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101161","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The psychophysical function that best fits human data from number-line estimation is the subject of a lively, on-going debate with important theoretical and practical implications. We comprehensively reviewed articles which tested competing psychophysical functions and found systematic variablility in task design. To test whether one function could account for data across diverse tasks, we examined 158 children’s and adults’ estimates using two 2 × 2 designs, crossing symbol (symbolic, non-symbolic) and boundedness (bounded, unbounded) on free number-line tasks (Experiment 1) and crossing the same factors on anchored tasks (Experiment 2). This yielded eight varieties of number-line estimation: four old varieties for testing replicability and four new varieties for testing generalizability. Across the eight varieties, 88.84 % of participants provided estimates better fit by a mixed log-linear model than competing models, with weights of the logarithmic component (<em>λ</em>) decreasing with age in each task. Unlike parameters of competing models, <em>λ</em> on any given task significantly predicted <em>λ</em> on the other 7 tasks, as well as predicting arithmetic skills. Results suggest that representations of numerical magnitude play the largest part in number-line estimation, and the “logarithmic-to-linear shift” provides the most accurate and generalizable description of how number-line estimation develops. (196 words)</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48214,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Review","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101161"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142421293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The 20-year documentary of genetic nurturing: The realization of Harris’s insight","authors":"Elena L. Grigorenko","doi":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101151","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101151","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Harris’s The Nature Assumption (1998) challenged the then-common belief that the non-genetic factor is the family (parental) environment or nurture. Nurture is not synonymous with environment, she argued. This argument has taken off and generated a large body of research, which, 20 years after the appearance of Harris’s book, was labeled as the inquiry into genetic nurturance (<span><span>Kong et al., 2018</span></span>). This article briefly describes the major concepts and premises underlying this field of inquiry. Just like Harris did in her book, it starts with a brief overview of current family-based quasi-experimental designs used for studying genetic nurturance. It then provides an update on several recent reviews of genetic nurturance research. It closes with a discussion of the significance of the research on genetic nurturance and the role Harris’s insight of 20 years ago played in it.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48214,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Review","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101151"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142421294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ege Kamber , Cristina M. Atance , Deepthi Kamawar , Caitlin E.V. Mahy
{"title":"Children’s saving: A review and proposed ecological framework","authors":"Ege Kamber , Cristina M. Atance , Deepthi Kamawar , Caitlin E.V. Mahy","doi":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101163","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101163","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Saving, defined as <em>reserving current resources for future use</em>, is a valuable future-oriented skill that allows individuals to meet their future goals (e.g., retire, go on vacation) without experiencing resource scarcity, disappointment, or distress. To date, saving has been examined extensively in adults, but to a lesser extent in childhood. Over the past decade, a small but growing body of research has focused on the early development of saving and has shown that children as young as age 3 can save for the future. In this paper, we review the literature on individual differences in children’s saving in relation to cognitive abilities, personality traits, and social environments (e.g., home environment and societal factors). Then, we propose an ecological framework of saving as a theoretical ground to examine children’s ability to save and to conceptualize how various factors, and their interactions, shape the development of saving and lead to (mal)adaptive saving habits. We conclude by suggesting important future directions for research that would further test this ecological framework.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48214,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Review","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101163"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142327016","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A meta-analysis of sequences in theory-of-mind understandings: Theory of mind scale findings across different cultural contexts","authors":"Chi-Lin Yu , Henry M. Wellman","doi":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101162","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101162","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In 2004, Wellman and Liu demonstrated that theory of mind (ToM) – the awareness of how mental states such as desires, beliefs, and intentions govern actions – develops via a progression of understandings, and pioneered a 5-item ToM Scale to measure those sequential developments. This ToM Scale has now been translated into many non-English languages and used worldwide. We conducted a meta-analysis to quantitatively summarize the now-abundant ToM Scale findings (across 91 studies and 10,321 2- to 10-year-old children) and describe how children worldwide progress through a sequence of ToM understandings in early development. Results showed that the ToM Scale successfully captures a robust developmental progression of ToM understandings. It also captures universality and cultural-specificity in ToM development: while ToM universally develops in a progressive sequence where initial insights lead to later ones, children from individualistic and collectivist countries progress through two slightly different sequences shaped by cultural learning.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48214,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Review","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101162"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142327017","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
E. Visibelli , A. Porru , D. Lucangeli , B. Butterworth , S. Benavides-Varela
{"title":"Neural indicators of numerical abilities in the infant human brain: A systematic review","authors":"E. Visibelli , A. Porru , D. Lucangeli , B. Butterworth , S. Benavides-Varela","doi":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101150","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101150","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Infants are thought to possess an innate specific capacity to process numerical information. In this article, we review the past research that has focused on unveiling the timing and localization of the related brain mechanisms with the purpose of depicting a neurodevelopmental blueprint of this capacity from birth. A systematic search of studies published between 1998 and 2023 was conducted. A total of 21 studies with 732 participants (age rage: 30 weeks of gestation to 6 years) met the study selection criterion. EEG, fMRI and fNIRS studies consistently support the existence of brain responses (mainly in the right parietal, bilateral frontal and occipital cortex) that reflect sensitivity to numerical features even before birth. These enable the infant brain to code numerical information independently of other non-numerical magnitude dimensions. Small (<4) or large (>4) numerosities seem to diverge in dissociable brain responses from the second semester of life, suggesting a neurodevelopmental specialization. Variations in the brain’s sensitivity to numerical information across participants and whether they can anticipate the individual’s development of future numerical skills remains uncertain, due to the scarcity of longitudinal studies. Understanding how familial and other contextual factors shape these initial biological predispositions and give rise to typical and atypical trajectories requires further investigation.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48214,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Review","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 101150"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273229724000340/pdfft?md5=9fb5a87c673574b4f27d8381df153c81&pid=1-s2.0-S0273229724000340-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142168388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}