Yu Tong , Judith H. Danovitch , Fuxing Wang , Weijun Wang
{"title":"Children weigh internet inaccuracy when trusting in online information","authors":"Yu Tong , Judith H. Danovitch , Fuxing Wang , Weijun Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106105","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106105","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examined whether an internet source’s history of inaccuracy influences children’s epistemic trust in online information. Chinese children aged 4 to 8 years (<em>N</em> = 84; 41 girls and 43 boys) accessed information on their own from an image-based website, heard information from the internet that was relayed by an adult, or viewed a person in a video providing information without referring to the internet (in a baseline condition). After the internet source provided three obviously inaccurate statements, children significantly reduced their epistemic trust in the internet source regardless of whether they obtained the information through a direct interaction with the internet or it was relayed by an adult. Moreover, the extent of the reduction in trust was comparable to the baseline video condition. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that 4- to 8-year-old children take into account a history of inaccuracy and revise their beliefs in statements from the internet, just as they do when evaluating human informants.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142444977","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}
Julie M. Hupp , Melissa K. Jungers , Samantha A. McDonald , Yujin Song
{"title":"The effects of prosody and referent characteristics on novel noun learning in children","authors":"Julie M. Hupp , Melissa K. Jungers , Samantha A. McDonald , Yujin Song","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106104","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106104","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Prosody is <em>how</em> words are spoken, often affecting the messages we convey. When prosody is relevant to the meaning, word learning is enhanced; however, it is unknown whether children attend to prosody that is not relevant to a word learning task (e.g., fearful for no reason). Previous research with adult noun learning showed that some emotional prosodies (e.g., warning) decreased word learning in comparison with a neutral Name prosody, demonstrating adults’ inability to ignore this irrelevant information. Given preschool children’s developing abilities to use prosody, the current research examined the effect of emotional prosody on children’s novel noun learning. In this study, preschool children (<em>N</em> = 67) were trained on novel labels paired to novel referents across five prosodic categories. Results suggest that referent complexity, animacy status, and prosody affect children’s noun learning, but in a different way than they affect adults. Prosody affected learning labels only for simple inanimate referents, with Happy and Fear prosodies being more accurate than the neutral Name. Whereas adults in previous research have been seemingly distracted by emotional prosody in learning nouns, children’s novel noun learning for simple objects was enhanced by Happy and Fear prosodies. This demonstrates the potential benefits that emotional prosody may have on children’s word learning.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142441281","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}
Kexin Ren , Amanda Grenell , Elizabeth A. Gunderson
{"title":"Are students’ math and verbal motivational beliefs malleable? The role of praise in dimensional comparisons","authors":"Kexin Ren , Amanda Grenell , Elizabeth A. Gunderson","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106100","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106100","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To determine their academic strengths and weaknesses, students compare their own performance across domains (e.g., math vs. English), a process referred to as <em>dimensional comparisons.</em> For example, individuals’ higher-scoring English performance may negatively affect their math motivational beliefs (competence self-concepts and intrinsic values), resulting in favoritism toward English. Students’ motivation can also be affected by praise from adults. However, praise in one domain (e.g., English) may have unexpected negative effects on motivation in the contrasting domain (e.g., math) through dimensional comparisons. We experimentally investigated the impact of receiving praise in only one domain on students’ domain-specific motivational beliefs. We hypothesized that students would have higher motivational beliefs in the praised domain and lower motivational beliefs in the non-praised domain compared with students who received no praise. Seventh- to ninth-graders (10- to 15-year-olds; <em>N</em> = 108; 46 girls; 92 living in the United States; 84.8% White, 2.9% Asian or Asian American, 2.9% Black or African American, 9.5% multiple races; parents’ education range: 13–18 years) showed heightened verbal competence self-concepts after receiving praise on either verbal or math performance. College students (first to fifth year; <em>N</em> = 109; 89 women; 105 living in the United States; 58.9% White, 21.5% Asian or Asian American, 10.3% Black or African American, 5.6% multiple races, 3.7% other races) showed higher verbal intrinsic values after receiving praise on verbal performance. Results supported positive effects of praise in the verbal domain only and were inconsistent with the predicted negative effects on the non-praised domain. We suggest that students’ verbal motivational beliefs are more malleable than math beliefs when receiving disproportionate praise.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142401636","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":"Three- and four-year-old children represent mutually exclusive possible identities","authors":"Esra Nur Turan-Küçük , Melissa M. Kibbe","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106078","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106078","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How do children think about and plan for possible outcomes of events that <em>could</em> happen in the future? Previous work that has investigated children’s ability to think about mutually exclusive possibilities has largely focused on children’s reasoning about one type of possibility—the possible locations of an object. Here, we investigated children’s reasoning about another type of possibility—mutually exclusive possible identities. In two experiments (<em>N =</em> 201 U.S. 3- and 4-year-olds), children were told that two animal characters (e.g., a bunny and a monkey) were going to take turns sliding down a playground slide. Children were told that the animals wanted to eat their favorite foods (e.g., carrots and bananas, respectively) as soon as they got to the bottom of the slide. In an Unambiguous Identity condition, we told children the identity of the animal that would slide down. In an Ambiguous Identity condition, we told children that which animal would slide down first was unknown. To examine children’s representations of possible identities, we asked children to “get snack ready.” We found that children in the Unambiguous Identity condition selected only one of the snacks (i.e., the favorite snack of the animal they were told would slide down), whereas children in the Ambiguous Identity condition selected <em>both</em> snacks, suggesting that they were accounting for <em>both</em> possible identities. These results extend the literature on the development of modal reasoning to include reasoning about possible identities and suggest that this ability may be available to children as young as 3 years.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142394261","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}
Felix Schreiber , Silvia Schneider , Albert Newen , Babett Voigt
{"title":"Embodying anticipated affect enhances proactive behavior in 5-year-old children","authors":"Felix Schreiber , Silvia Schneider , Albert Newen , Babett Voigt","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106099","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106099","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Imagining anticipated affects can foster future-oriented behavior in adults. However, children often still have difficulties in vividly imagining how they will feel in a specific episode (affective episodic future thinking [EFT]). We investigated whether enacting anticipated affects helps children to imagine how they will feel and whether this enhances proactive behavior in turn. A total of 90 5-year-old children were randomly assigned to one of three groups. In the embodiment group, children were instructed to imagine and physically enact how positive and negative they would feel in an upcoming performance test. Children in the EFT-only group underwent a similar procedure but did not enact their future affect. In the control group, children were reminded of the upcoming test only without receiving a prompt to imagine the upcoming test. After the manipulation, children had the opportunity to play one of three games. One game was relevant for the test. Children’s choice to play the relevant game in advance of the test served as an indicator for proactive behavior. Mechanisms (e.g., detailedness of the envisioned event) and moderators (theory of mind and neuroticism) of the link between embodied EFT and proactive behavior were explored. Children in the embodiment group chose the relevant game above chance level, but they did not choose the relevant game more often than children in the EFT-only group and the control group. Those results were independent of the assumed mediators and moderators.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142378374","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yan Hong , Ting Zhang , Cong Pang , Ling Zou , Ming Li , Renlai Zhou
{"title":"The near and far transfer effects of computerized working memory training in typically developing preschool children: Evidence from event-related potentials","authors":"Yan Hong , Ting Zhang , Cong Pang , Ling Zou , Ming Li , Renlai Zhou","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106096","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106096","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Working memory (WM) refers to the ability to actively maintain and process information needed to complete complex tasks such as comprehension, learning, and reasoning. Recent studies have examined the efficacy of computerized working memory training (WMT) in improving cognitive functions in general and WM in particular, with mixed results. Thus, to what extent can WMT produce near and far transfer effects to cognitive function is currently unclear. This study investigated the transfer effects of a computerized WMT for preschool children and also examined the possible neural correlates using the event-related potential (ERP) technique. A total of 50 Chinese preschoolers (64.44 ± 7.76 months old; 24 girls) received 4-week training during school hours. Compared with those in the active control group, children in the training group showed better gains in behavioral performance in the WM task and significantly more changes in ERP markers of the WM and inhibitory control tasks (near transfer effect). However, no evidence was found for transfer to fluid intelligence (far transfer effect). These findings suggest that WMT is capable of enhancing cognitive functioning in preschool children, and as such this work has important implications for educational practice and it may help to design and refine cognitive interventions for typically developing children and those with WM problems or other cognitive deficits (e.g., children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142376153","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":"Finger use mirroring young children’s ways of experiencing numbers","authors":"Camilla Björklund","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106076","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106076","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Children who encounter questions about quantities or numbers are observed to use their fingers in different ways to aid their problem solving. This study aimed to contribute to the area of finger counting research with an inquiry of what children’s finger use tells us about their knowledge of numbers. A basic argument is that it is not sufficient to observe the actual use of fingers; there is a need for interpretations of what the finger use means to the children, taking the children’s perspective as the outset. This was done by analyzing 4- and 5-year-olds’ finger use through the lens of phenomenography and variation theory of learning to describe the qualitatively different ways in which children use fingers as an expression of their ways of experiencing the meanings of numbers. Five categories of finger use that show a variety in the meanings the fingers represent emerged: Fingers represent individual items, quantities, countables, number relations, and number structure. The results show that children’s finger use may give access to their ways of understanding numbers; some ways of using fingers indicate expressions of more or less advanced meanings of numbers. A conclusion from the results is that to develop number knowledge and skills, children are aided by learning to see and use their fingers as representing composed units. Some children need the structural support of fingers to solve number problems, and fingers should be used to explore number structures rather than used as countables.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142366966","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What motivates early lies? Deception in 2½- to 5-year-olds","authors":"Cynthia Xinran Guo, Philippe Rochat","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106079","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106079","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>What motivates young children to produce early lies? A total of 217 2½- to 5-year-old children (<em>M</em><sub>age</sub> = 44.5 months, <em>SD</em> = 8.45; 54% girls; 61.7% White) from the southeastern United States were tested using a modified third-party transgression paradigm to examine the motivation behind their deception. Children were assigned to one of three conditions—baseline, self-motivated, or other-motivated condition—and their propensity to lie was captured through both verbal and nonverbal measures. Results show that children’s early lies are primarily driven by a self-serving motivation. However, the motivation to lie diversifies by 4 years of age, when children begin to lie for both self-serving and other-serving motivations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142366967","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}
Stéphanie Massol , Joana Acha , Lisa Rondot , Marta Vergara-Martinez , Emilie Favre , Bernard Lété
{"title":"Transposed-character effects during learning to read: When does letter and non-letter strings processing become different?","authors":"Stéphanie Massol , Joana Acha , Lisa Rondot , Marta Vergara-Martinez , Emilie Favre , Bernard Lété","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106081","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106081","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Efficient reading requires the association of different letter identities with their positions in the written word. This leads to the development of a specialized mechanism for encoding flexible location-invariant letter positions through learning to read. In this study, we investigated not only the emergence and development of this position coding mechanism but also whether this mechanism is a consequence of the orthographic code (i.e., letter specific) or inherent to generic visual object recognition. To do so, the same–different matching task was used with children from Grade 1 to Grade 5 (Experiment 1) and with adults (Experiment 2). In both experiments, reference and target stimuli were composed of four-character strings (consonants, digits, and geometrical forms) and could be identical or different by transposing or substituting two internal characters. Analyses of response times, error rates, and discriminability indices revealed a transposed-character effect regardless of the type of characters in Grades 1 and 2, whereas transposed-character effects were greater for letter strings than for familiar non-letter strings in Grade 3, lasting up to Grade 5 as well as in adults. These results provided evidence in favor of a flexible position coding mechanism that is specific to letter strings, which emerges with reading experience as a consequence of parallel processing of letters within words.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142337169","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}
Marcela Soto , Lauren Micalizzi , Dayna Price , Michelle L. Rogers , Kristina M. Jackson
{"title":"Birth order moderates the association between adverse childhood experiences and externalizing behavior symptoms in adolescence","authors":"Marcela Soto , Lauren Micalizzi , Dayna Price , Michelle L. Rogers , Kristina M. Jackson","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106077","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2024.106077","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with externalizing behaviors. Whereas some ACEs affect individual children (i.e., child-specific; e.g., failing a grade), others affect the family unit (i.e., family-wide; e.g., parent losing a job); effects of ACEs on externalizing behavior may manifest differently across groupings of ACEs. Moreover, birth order may modify the association between child-specific and family-wide ACEs and externalizing behavior due to differences in the experience of being a younger versus older sibling. This study examined the externalizing behavior of siblings in relation to their experiences of child-specific and family-wide ACEs to test the hypothesis that younger siblings are at greater risk for developing externalizing symptoms following familial ACE exposure. Participants were 61 sibling pairs (younger sibling M<sub>age</sub> = 11.37 years, 44.1% male; older sibling M<sub>age</sub> = 13.1 years, 52.5% male) recruited from six schools in the northeastern United States. Parents rated each child’s externalizing behaviors (e.g., bullying, meanness) and retrospectively reported on each child’s experience of 34 ACEs; two raters categorized ACEs as child-specific (n = 10) or family-wide (n = 24). Multilevel modeling revealed that both child-specific and family-wide ACEs were associated with increased externalizing behaviors. Birth order moderated the effect of family-wide (but not child-specific) ACEs on externalizing behaviors, independent of sex and age. Externalizing behavior was higher for younger siblings as compared with older siblings, particularly when a high number of ACEs (6+) were reported. This research should prompt future exploration of mechanistic theories of the impact of family-wide and child-specific ACEs and the role of birth order.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142324147","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}