Katherine A. Grisanzio, Patrick Mair, Leah H. Somerville
{"title":"Characterizing Within-Person Trajectories of Negative Affect Across Adolescence: A Longitudinal Clustering Approach","authors":"Katherine A. Grisanzio, Patrick Mair, Leah H. Somerville","doi":"10.1111/desc.70052","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70052","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>While day-to-day negative affect normatively rises across adolescence, emotional experiences also stratify, or diverge, across individuals. Moreover, negative affect is not a unitary construct but comprises distinct feeling states (e.g., sadness, anger, anxiety), each characterized by distinct age-related trends. Yet, most developmental research relies on cross-sectional approaches and treats negative affect as a singular dimension, limiting insights into the granular, within-person <i>trajectories</i> of discrete negative affects across adolescence. In the current study, we aimed to characterize these trajectories using a three-wave longitudinal sample (spanning ∼2.5 years, <i>N</i> = 251, aged 9–15 years at baseline) from the Human Connectome Project in Development for analysis. At each visit, participants completed self-report measures assessing different forms of negative affect—sadness, anger, evaluative anxiety, and general anxiety—and a range of social and global functional outcomes. Analyses revealed three distinct subgroups of adolescents—one whose daily negative affect was low and rose only modestly with age, one whose daily negative affect was moderate and rose more significantly with age, and one whose daily negative affect started high and continued to intensify with age. These clusters meaningfully differentiated on external functional outcome measures of social functioning and life satisfaction. Additionally, regression analyses revealed that slopes for specific negative affect types provided unique predictive value for certain outcomes, emphasizing the importance of preserving affective granularity in investigations of adolescent emotional experience. These findings help to refine theories of adolescent emotional development by revealing the specific negative affect trajectory patterns and discrete affect types most predictive of subsequent well-being.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>We used a longitudinal clustering approach to characterize within-person trajectories of negative affective experiences in individuals 9–15 years at baseline.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>While on average, negative affect increases across adolescence, there is a large degree of variability between individuals across this period of life, motivating an investigation of its underlying structure.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Finite mixture models revealed three latent subgroups of individuals differing both in the intensity and developmental trajectories of negative affect and that differentiated on functional outcome measures.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Findings enhance the granularity in describing typical age-related affect trajectories and highlight subgroups of individua","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144681166","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}
Karolina Wieczorek, Rochelle Hentges, Suzanne Tough, Susan A. Graham
{"title":"Pathways From Early Vocabulary to School-Age Social Skills: Findings From a Large Prospective Cohort Study","authors":"Karolina Wieczorek, Rochelle Hentges, Suzanne Tough, Susan A. Graham","doi":"10.1111/desc.70051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70051","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>This study investigated developmental pathways between early language and later social skills in a large, prospective cohort consisting of 3387 mother-child dyads. Mediational pathways were examined between parent-reported expressive language (at 2 years of age) and social skills (at 8 years of age), via core language and pragmatic language (at 5 years of age). The analyses accounted for biological and environmental factors known to be associated with language development (i.e., child sex at birth, child birthweight, family income, mother's level of education, primary language spoken in the home, and perinatal health factors). Results indicated that pragmatic language, but not core language, acted as a significant partial mediator in the pathway of interest. These results support a developmental chain from early expressive language in toddlerhood to subsequent social skills in middle childhood via pragmatic language skills around school entry. Implications for theory and practice, and limitations are reviewed.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Using a large prospective cohort study, we investigated developmental pathways between early language at 2 years and social skills at 8 years.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Pragmatic language at age 5, but not core language, acted a significant partial mediator in pathway of interest.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>These results support a developmental chain from early expressive language in toddlerhood to social skills in middle childhood via pragmatic language skills around school entry.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70051","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144666510","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":"Input to the Language Learning Infant: The Impact of Other Children","authors":"Johanna Schick, Moritz M. Daum, Sabine Stoll","doi":"10.1111/desc.70045","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70045","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In urban, industrialized cultures, the best predictor of how children acquire their native language is child-directed speech from adults. However, in many societies, children are much less exposed to such input. What has remained unexplored is the impact of another type of input: other children's speech. In cross-cultural head-turn experiments, we demonstrate that Shipibo-Konibo infants (Peruvian Amazon) and Swiss infants (urban industrialized setting) show greater attention to children talking among themselves than to adults doing the same. We further show that, despite hearing more child-directed speech than child speech, Swiss infants equally attend to child-directed speech by adults and child speech. Interestingly, child-directed speech and child speech share acoustic and structural features. These findings suggest that, if available, the speech of other children may play an important role in language acquisition.</p>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70045","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144666509","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":"On Convenience, Diversity, and Generalisability: A Commentary on Scaff et al. (2025)","authors":"Evan Kidd, Rowena Garcia","doi":"10.1111/desc.70050","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70050","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES, MacWhinney <span>2000</span>) is the jewel in the crown of child language research. Emerging in the 1980s to archive and facilitate the sharing and re-use of precious and laborious-to-collect-and-process corpus data (MacWhinney and Snow <span>1985</span>), its forward-thinking ethos predated the modern Open Science movement by decades. Thanks to the hard work of Brian MacWhinney and others, it has continued to expand, has birthed similar repositories (AphasiaBank, Forbes et al. <span>2012</span>; HomeBank, VanDam et al. <span>2016</span>), and no doubt inspired others (e.g., WordBank, Frank et al. <span>2017</span>). Progress in the field of child language acquisition has unquestionably accelerated because of its existence. Yet, as Scaff et al. (<span>2025</span>) show in their paper, the data in CHILDES are not fully representative of the languages of the world and the children who learn them. Despite containing corpora on many dozens of languages, those languages are predominantly Indo-European, with the data mostly coming from affluent urban nuclear families in wealthy countries. They conclude that, because of this skew in the data, researchers should be mindful of generalising from the data.</p><p>In this commentary, we discuss two issues that the Scaff et al. (<span>2025</span>) paper raises, addressing (i) the importance of data coverage in studies of child language, and (ii) the extent to which demographic variables allow generalisations from existing corpus data.</p><p>Research in the cognitive and psychological sciences overwhelmingly relies on convenience sampling. In studies of language, convenience sampling comes in two forms—selection of the target language(s) and selection of participants. Both contain variability. The circa 7000 languages spoken across the world vary on many different dimensions, such that it is difficult to identify substantive universals (Evans and Levinson <span>2009</span>), and the boundaries of what is possible in language continue to expand as language documentation uncovers new phenomena (Seifart et al. <span>2018</span>). However, we are a long way from understanding how numerous features of language are acquired. In a paper that analysed language coverage in child language journals across 45 years of publishing, we found a large skew in the literature towards English and a handful of other, mostly Indo-European languages (Kidd and Garcia <span>2022a</span>). Passmore et al. (<span>2025</span>) juxtaposed those data against two forms of data: (i) the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS, Eberhard et al. <span>2021</span>; Lewis and Simons <span>2010</span>), which ranks languages according to their vitality (i.e., their vulnerability to loss, from healthy national languages like English and Spanish to ‘sleeping’ languages with no current speakers), and (ii) large language databases used to represent the design space of phonology (Pho","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70050","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144647520","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}
Emma James, Paul A. Thompson, Lucy Bowes, Kate Nation
{"title":"Language and Beyond: A Registered Report Examining Single and Multiple Risk Models of Later Reading Comprehension Weaknesses","authors":"Emma James, Paul A. Thompson, Lucy Bowes, Kate Nation","doi":"10.1111/desc.70048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70048","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Children with poor reading comprehension tend to have oral language weaknesses, suggesting that poor language in the early years is a proximal cause of later reading comprehension difficulties. Yet, longitudinal studies have not succeeded in reliably predicting which children go on to have comprehension weaknesses (CW), and evidence comprises small sample sizes and a narrow focus on language in isolation. In this registered report, we examined early predictors of later outcomes in 879 children with CW identified at 9 years in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Study 1 showed that these children had poorer language at 24 and 38 months (but not 15 months) than peers who did not go on to develop reading difficulties (<i>n</i> = 4516). However, preschool language ability was a poor predictor of individual outcomes, which was not improved by accounting for the language and communication environment. Study 2 used a multiple risk approach to ask whether breadth (number) or depth (severity) of risk factors predicted reading outcomes in a subsample of 125 children with CW and 561 typically developing readers. Having three or more risk factors increases the risk for later CW. Language was the most consistent predictor of group membership, but the depth of cognitive risks beyond language was associated with the severity of reading impairment. However, neither the breadth nor the depth of risks could adequately predict individual outcomes. These findings align with a multiple risk view of reading CW and highlight the challenges in early identification.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Children with comprehension weaknesses (CW) in mid-childhood had language weaknesses at 24 and 38 months, but prediction was poor at an individual child level.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>The breadth of early risk factors related to both the presence and severity of later CW, but remained poor predictors of individual outcomes.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>While lower levels of preschool language were a risk factor for poor comprehension, other cognitive factors were associated with the severity of difficulties.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>These findings highlight the challenge in identifying children at risk for comprehension difficulties, and emphasise the need to look both at language and beyond language.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70048","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144624278","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}
Béatrice Le Tellier, Olivier Vivier, Henry Markovits, Joyce F. Benenson
{"title":"Do Young Human Infants Show Empathy for Others in Distress?","authors":"Béatrice Le Tellier, Olivier Vivier, Henry Markovits, Joyce F. Benenson","doi":"10.1111/desc.70047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70047","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Results from a number of studies of human empathy are interpreted as demonstrating that young infants exhibit concern towards others who are suffering. Studies of empathy in young infants, however, often confound interest in intensity and ecologically valid stimuli with concern about others’ suffering. Using a perceptually controlled design with ecologically valid stimuli, we investigated whether very young human infants preferentially look at a peer in distress. We showed 78 3–6-month-old infants videos of four babies who were crying and cooing along with synthetically generated control videos of the same babies that preserved their perceptual features. Results showed that infants overwhelmingly looked longer at babies who were crying versus cooing, with the same relative difference observed for crying versus cooing controls, although infants found real babies more interesting than controls. Results suggest that infants’ attention to differences in emotional valence related to empathy cannot be clearly interpreted without controlling for associated perceptual differences.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Three- to six-month-old infants look more at crying than cooing babies, even when they are perceptually scrambled controls.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Real babies are looked at more than their perceptually scrambled controls.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>No clear evidence exists for young infants’ empathy as measured through looking times.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144589496","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}
Lucy A. Lurie, Meredith A. Gruhn, Kathryn Garrisi, Katie A. McLaughlin, Kathryn L. Humphreys, Charles H. Zeanah, Nathan A. Fox, Charles A. Nelson, Margaret A. Sheridan
{"title":"Caregiving Quality and Adolescent Cortical Structure: A 16-Year Longitudinal Study of Institutionally Reared Youth","authors":"Lucy A. Lurie, Meredith A. Gruhn, Kathryn Garrisi, Katie A. McLaughlin, Kathryn L. Humphreys, Charles H. Zeanah, Nathan A. Fox, Charles A. Nelson, Margaret A. Sheridan","doi":"10.1111/desc.70043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70043","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Severe psychosocial deprivation in early childhood experienced by institutionally reared children changes the course of structural brain development. Evidence from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP) has demonstrated a causal association of random assignment to high-quality foster care intervention in early childhood with remediation of adolescent structural brain development. To date, however, caregiving quality has not been examined as a mechanism contributing to these neurodevelopmental changes. Moreover, further delineating the effects of developmental timing of high-quality caregiving experiences on neural development is critical to inform intervention for early psychosocial deprivation. In the present study, early childhood caregiving quality was examined as a mechanism underlying foster care intervention and adolescent brain structure among ever-institutionalized youth in the BEIP. Additionally, we examined the effect of the developmental timing of high-quality caregiving experiences across development on adolescent brain structure in both ever- and never-institutionalized youth. In Analysis 1, we observed a significant indirect effect of high caregiving quality following random assignment to the foster care intervention on cortical thickness in the left inferior frontal gyrus and surface area in the right lateral occipital cortex at Age 16. In Analysis 2, the earliest caregiving experiences were uniquely and consistently associated with adolescent cortical thickness. However, high-quality caregiving experiences across childhood and adolescence were associated with adolescent cortical surface area in distinct regions. Taken together, findings suggest that high-quality caregiving experiences across development, but especially in early childhood, can influence adolescent cortical structure even when accounting for experiences of caregiving adversity.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Greater early childhood caregiving quality mediated the association of random assignment to foster care intervention and thinner left inferior frontal gyrus among ever-institutionalized adolescents.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>The earliest caregiving experiences were uniquely and consistently associated with adolescent cortical thickness outcomes in the lateral prefrontal, temporal, and lateral occipital cortices.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Greater caregiving quality across childhood and adolescence was associated with greater cortical surface area in distinct regions of the frontoparietal network and lateral occipital cortex.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Taken together, findings support that high-quality caregiving experiences across development, but particularly in early c","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144537028","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}
Yunji Park, Priya B. Kalra, Yun-Shiuan Chuang, John V. Binzak, Percival G. Matthews, Edward M. Hubbard
{"title":"Developmental Changes in Nonsymbolic and Symbolic Fractions Processing: A Cross-Sectional fMRI Study","authors":"Yunji Park, Priya B. Kalra, Yun-Shiuan Chuang, John V. Binzak, Percival G. Matthews, Edward M. Hubbard","doi":"10.1111/desc.70042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70042","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>A substantial body of research has demonstrated that human and nonhuman animals have perceptually-based abilities to process magnitudes of nonsymbolic ratios (e.g., ratios composed by juxtaposing two-line segments). In prior work, we have extended the neuronal recycling hypothesis to include neurocognitive architectures for nonsymbolic ratio processing, proposing that these systems might support symbolic fractions acquisition. We tested two key propositions: (1) children should show neural sensitivity to nonsymbolic fractions before receiving formal fractions instruction, and (2) they should leverage this foundation by recruiting neural architectures for nonsymbolic fractions processing for symbolic fractions. We compared nonsymbolic and symbolic fractions processing among 2nd-graders (<i>n</i> = 28, ages 7.5–8.8), who had not yet received formal symbolic fractions instruction, and 5th-graders (<i>n</i> = 33, ages 10.3–11.9), who had. During fMRI scanning, children performed ratio comparison tasks, determining which of two nonsymbolic or symbolic fractions was larger. Both cohorts showed behavioral and neural evidence of processing nonsymbolic and symbolic fractions magnitudes, with performance modulated by numerical distance between stimuli. Consistent with our predictions, 2nd-graders recruited a right parietal-frontal network for nonsymbolic fractions but not for symbolic fractions, whereas 5th-graders recruited a bilateral parietal-frontal network for both, overlapping with but extending beyond that of 2nd-graders. Furthermore, nonsymbolic-symbolic neural similarity in the intraparietal sulcus was greater for 5th-graders than for 2nd-graders. These results present the first developmental neuroimaging evidence that neural substrates for nonsymbolic ratios exist before formal learning, which may be recycled to process symbolic fractions.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>2nd-graders, prior to formal fractions instructions, already recruit a right parietal-frontal network when comparing nonsymbolic fractions.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>5th-graders, who have received some formal fractions instruction, recruit this same network not only for nonsymbolic fractions, but also for symbolic fractions.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>These findings are consistent with the neuronal recycling account, which posits that symbolic fraction processing builds on neural substrates originally used for nonsymbolic fraction processing.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>These findings suggest that pedagogical strategies focus on supporting this recycling process may enhance students’ understanding of symbolic fractions.</li>\u0000 ","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70042","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144537142","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}
Nicolò Cesana-Arlotti, Sofia Jáuregui, Peter Mazalik, Shaun Nichols, Justin Halberda
{"title":"Logical Concepts of (Im)possibility Guide Young Children's Decision-Making","authors":"Nicolò Cesana-Arlotti, Sofia Jáuregui, Peter Mazalik, Shaun Nichols, Justin Halberda","doi":"10.1111/desc.70044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70044","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>The human capacity for rational decisions hinges on modal judgment: the discernment of what could, has to, or cannot happen. This ability was proposed to be a late outcome of human cognitive development, contingent on the mastery of linguistic structures. Here, we show that preschool-age children are capable of sophisticated forms of modal judgment. In two experiments, 96 children (aged 34–65 months) helped an agent attain a benefit or avoid harm. Consistent with logical distinctions, we found that children perform best when faced with choices that cross the logical categories of necessity, possibility, and impossibility, while they struggle with choices only differing in probability. Our results reveal that preschoolers spontaneously recruit logical concepts required for modal judgment, which likely predates modal language.</p>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Rational plans and decisions under uncertainty hinge on modal judgment: the discernment between goals that are attainable, unattainable, or guaranteed.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>It has been proposed that modal concepts are not available prior to the age of 4 years and the acquisition of modal words like “can” and “have to.”</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>In a novel paradigm, we found that preschoolers successfully make one-shot decisions between options that cross logical categories (i.e., necessity vs. possibility, possibility vs. impossibility).</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>In contrast, 3-year-olds struggled when asked to compare probabilities within the same category (i.e., highly probable possibility vs. improbable possibility).</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Our findings reveal that young children have a logical understanding of modal categories that emerges spontaneously to guide their decisions and predates the mastery of modal language.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144503197","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}
Hanna Halkola, Charlotte Viktorsson, Emily J. H. Jones, Tony Charman, Terje Falck-Ytter, Giorgia Bussu
{"title":"Genetic and Environmental Effects on Parent-Rated Adaptive Behaviour in Infancy","authors":"Hanna Halkola, Charlotte Viktorsson, Emily J. H. Jones, Tony Charman, Terje Falck-Ytter, Giorgia Bussu","doi":"10.1111/desc.70041","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.70041","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Adaptive behaviour refers to the everyday skills that individuals are expected to have to function independently, based on their age and societal norms. Currently, we know little about the role of genetic and environmental factors in parent-rated adaptive behaviours in early infancy. The aim of this study was to investigate the aetiological factors that influence individual variability in different adaptive behaviour domains at 5 months, and the degree of genetic and environmental influences that are unique and shared across these domains. We analysed data from the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scale (VABS-II) motor domain and combined domain of socialization and communication (social-communication) using a multivariate twin modelling approach. Participants were a community sample of monozygotic and dizygotic twins assessed at 5 months of age (<i>n</i> = 594). The results show high shared environmental influence on both motor (0.67) and social-communication (0.78) domains with 45% shared variance. Both had low, but significant heritability estimates (0.21 and 0.12, respectively) but did not share genetic variance. No statistically significant associations were found between polygenic scores for autism, ADHD, schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder, and either of the adaptive behaviours measured here. Our results highlight the importance of shared environmental factors in the development of social-communication and motor skills in infancy, whether it is through social interaction with caregivers, or the stimuli and opportunities presented at home.</p>\u0000 </section>\u0000 \u0000 <section>\u0000 \u0000 <h3> Summary</h3>\u0000 \u0000 <div>\u0000 <ul>\u0000 \u0000 <li>During development structural arm length representation is underestimated, while the functional arm length representation is overestimated.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Underestimation of structural arm length is driven by an underestimation of hand length, as forearm length is accurate.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>Structural hand length is underestimated, supporting that underestimation of hand length is a characteristic of human body representation.</li>\u0000 \u0000 <li>The opposite pattern of results between structural and functional arm representation suggests the existence of multiple independent representations of the body.</li>\u0000 </ul>\u0000 </div>\u0000 </section>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":48392,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Science","volume":"28 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/desc.70041","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144323359","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}