Cognitive Development最新文献

{"title":"Exploring the literary impact of visual storytelling techniques in graphic novels and their impact on American Literary Tradition","authors":"Li Fan,&nbsp;Guanhua Xiao,&nbsp;Jingwen Qin","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101743","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101743","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Visual storytelling, a fusion of text and image, has emerged as a significant genre in contemporary American literature with the evolution of the graphic novel. This study examines literary scholars’ perceptions of how visual storytelling techniques used in graphic novels relate to contemporary American literary traditions. Using a quantitative approach, 485 literary scholars were surveyed via purposive sampling, and the data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings suggest that literary scholars perceive several dimensions of graphic novels as positively associated with developments in contemporary American literary traditions. Narrative structure (β = 0.134, p &lt; 0.001) and new literary forms (β = 0.122, p = 0.002) indicated positive associations with ALT. Additionally, reader engagement (β = 0.146, p = 0.001) and diversification of literary voices (β = 0.195, p &lt; 0.001) revealed the strongest positive relationships. Genre and literary style were also positively associated with ALT (β = 0.127, p = 0.004). The novelty of this study lies in its integrated empirical examination of how visual storytelling operates not only as a narrative technique but as a driver of literary transformation within the American context. The research recommended that visual narrative structures may become an increasingly significant part of literary scholarship to understand the modern forms of storytelling.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101743"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148499480","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Dynamic assessment of spatial working memory: The effects of mediation on spatial working memory, analogical thinking, and readiness for math among kindergarten and Grade 1 children","authors":"David Tzuriel,&nbsp;Dikla Hanuka-Levi","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101751","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101751","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The study's objectives are to present a novel dynamic assessment (DA) of spatial working memory (SWM) and examine the effects of SWM training (SWMT) on analogical thinking and readiness for math among kindergarten and Grade 1 children. We conducted two studies (Study 1, n = 252; Study 2, n = 241) using <em>the Children's Spatial Working Memory</em> (CSWM) test, the <em>Children's Analogical Thinking Modifiability-Closed Analogies</em> (CATM-CL) test, and <em>the Math Readiness Test (MART).</em> In both studies, we examined the effects of SWMT on SWM and analogical thinking. Children were randomly assigned to either an experimental or a control group. Both groups were administered the CSWM and the CATM-CL tests before and after a short-term training phase. Children in the experimental group received SWMT for 40 min, while children in the control group received mediation of analogical thinking using the <em>Construction Analogies</em> of the <em>Children’s Conceptual and Perceptual Modifiability</em> measure. The findings showed that children in the experimental group demonstrated significantly improved SWM scores from pre- to post-intervention compared to those in the control group. As expected, the SWMT was transferred to math readiness (Study 2). Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that SWM had a statistically significant effect in predicting analogical thinking modifiability, and that analogical thinking modifiability, in turn, had a statistically significant effect on predicting the modifiability of math readiness. The findings were explained by DA theory and recent research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101751"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148634935","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Complement clause comprehension across languages: The case of bilingual children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder","authors":"Silvia Silleresi,&nbsp;Jill de Villiers,&nbsp;Franziska Baumeister,&nbsp;Ehsan Solaimani,&nbsp;Pauline Wolfer,&nbsp;Stephanie Durrleman","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101742","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101742","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Complement clause comprehension plays a key role in language and cognitive development, particularly in supporting Theory of Mind (ToM). This study examines how bilingual exposure and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) affect children's understanding of finite complement clauses introduced by speech verbs (e.g., ‘say’). Children with ASD frequently experience difficulties in complement clauses, especially when these structures encode false beliefs or require complex mental-state reasoning. In contrast, bilingualism has been associated with advantages in executive functions (e.g., working memory, cognitive flexibility) and enhanced ToM abilities, both of which relate to complement clause comprehension. These findings raise the possibility that bilingual experience may mitigate some of the linguistic and cognitive difficulties typically observed in ASD. To investigate these possibilities, we tested 126 children (79 with ASD, 47 neurotypical) using a cross-linguistic picture selection task designed to minimize ToM demands, in either English, French, or German. We explored the role of cognitive (working memory, nonverbal IQ, inhibitory control) and linguistic (syntax, vocabulary) predictors, and continuous measures of bilingual language experience. Results showed that children with ASD performed significantly lower than their neurotypical peers, with more pronounced age-related gains in the neurotypical group. While bilingualism <em>per se</em> did not predict performance, richer and more proficient use of the language of testing positively influenced complement clause comprehension, particularly in children with ASD. Visuospatial working memory, nonverbal IQ, and receptive vocabulary emerged as significant positive predictors of complement clause comprehension, whereas broader syntactic ability and inhibitory control did not. Complement clause comprehension predicted ToM outcomes in children with ASD, but not in neurotypical children, suggesting that complement understanding may serve as a compensatory mechanism for ToM reasoning in autism. These findings highlight that bilingualism is not inherently associated with either advantages or disadvantages for syntactic development and further underscore the intricate links between complements and cognition in ASD.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101742"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148776453","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Developmental changes in gesture–speech integration and their impact on memory encoding","authors":"Kazuki Sekine,&nbsp;Takumi Yamaguchi","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101756","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101756","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study examined whether spontaneous gestures enhance memory for spoken content and whether gesture information is retained accurately in memory across developmental stages. We focused on iconic gestures that depict perceptual or motoric aspects of a referent (McNeill, 1992). Children aged seven, eight, and nine years, as well as adults, participated in a memory task in which gestures and speech were either semantically congruent or incongruent. Participants were later asked to recall both the verbal content and the meaning of the gestures. The results revealed that recall accuracy for verbal content was significantly higher when gestures were present compared to when they were absent. Furthermore, in adults and nine-year-olds, congruent gesture-speech pairings led to higher recall accuracy than incongruent ones, while younger children did not show this effect. This suggests that the ability to benefit from semantically aligned gestures in verbal memory emerges around the age of nine. Regarding gesture memory, accuracy was higher when participants had retrieved the accompanying verbal content, suggesting that verbal retrieval can facilitate subsequent access to gesture information. These results suggest that gesture and speech may be stored in an integrated manner in memory. No significant age differences were found in gesture recall accuracy, possibly due to methodological constraints. Overall, the results support the view that gestures contribute to memory by providing redundant semantic information that enhances comprehension and retrieval, with developmental improvements in integration efficiency. These findings have implications for educational contexts, suggesting that congruent gestures may support memory and learning, especially from middle childhood onwards.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101756"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148634168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From executive functions to flexible cognition: Early links between cognitive flexibility and dispositional openness","authors":"Hiromi Tsuji","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101752","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101752","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Flexible cognition—the capacity to adapt thought and behavior to changing contexts—emerges rapidly in early childhood. This study examined how executive functions (EFs) and dispositional openness jointly contribute to this capacity. A sample of 140 Japanese preschoolers aged 3–6 years completed EF tasks assessing working memory, inhibition, and shifting, as well as an ambiguous-figure interpretation task indexing flexible cognition. Parents rated children’s Big Five personality traits using the Big Five Personality Inventory for Children. Multiple regression analyses revealed that working memory was the most robust predictor of flexible cognition, whereas inhibition and shifting did not show unique associations when considered alongside other predictors. A focused moderation model further showed that Openness moderated the association between working memory and flexible cognition: children higher in Openness showed a stronger positive association between working-memory capacity and flexible cognition. These findings suggest that flexible cognition arises from the coordination of executive resources and dispositional tendencies toward exploration. Openness may shape how children deploy working-memory resources to reinterpret ambiguous information during early development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101752"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148634170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Individual differences in children’s recognition of contradictory evidence","authors":"Candice M. Mills,&nbsp;Judith H. Danovitch,&nbsp;Anthony J. Monroe","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101753","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101753","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recognizing evidence that is inconsistent with one’s initial beliefs is an important epistemic skill, but few studies have examined whether children can recognize evidence that is inconsistent with a hypothesis or possible developmental changes or individual differences related to this skill. In the current study, 7- to 10-year-old English-speaking children primarily from the United States (<em>N</em> = 84; 39 boys, 45 girls; 56% White) observed stories about animals’ behaviors and a hypothesis for why the animal exhibited that behavior. For each hypothesis, children evaluated whether different pieces of evidence supported, were irrelevant, or contradicted the hypothesis. Children rated evidence that supported an alternative hypothesis similarly to irrelevant evidence, suggesting they viewed this evidence as irrelevant. However, children rated evidence that directly contradicted the hypothesis as more contradictory than supporting evidence, irrelevant evidence, and alternative evidence. Children with greater domain-specific (i.e., biological) knowledge and children with a greater tendency to suppress intuitive answers in favor of more reflective answers rated contradictory evidence as more contradictory than children weaker in these skills. These findings suggest that prior knowledge and cognitive reflection are important contributors to children’s developing capacity for evidence evaluation. Implications for teaching critical thinking skills and supporting belief revision are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101753"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148634936","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Pretend play is not an ‘extra’: Exploring the relation between parent-reported pretend play and executive functions in the toddlerhood period","authors":"Joanna Kelly,&nbsp;Tobias Constien,&nbsp;Michelle Downes","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101759","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101759","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Empirical evidence and theoretical accounts increasingly highlight the role of pretend play in fostering the development of executive function skills in childhood. Yet, previous research has predominantly been focused on pre-school- and primary-school-aged children, even though both pretend play and executive functioning have a developmental onset much earlier in development. To address this gap within the existing evidence base, the current report aimed to explore this association in the toddlerhood period using a multi-method approach. In an initial consultation, insights from mothers of toddlers were obtained via a World Café approach. Secondly, a parent-reported online study, including 213 toddlers (<em>M</em> = 25.47 months, <em>SD</em> = 5.33) identified a quantitative estimate of the concurrent relation between parent-reported indices of pretend play and executive functions in toddlerhood. After controlling for demographic variables, a significant association between toddlers’ pretend play ability and cognitive executive functioning skills was identified. However, no relation was found between toddlers’ pretend play ability and regulatory executive function skills. Findings from across studies are discussed in relation to previous theoretical accounts on the role of pretend play in development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101759"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148656905","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Child language development from early years to middle childhood: Examining its association with sustained attention, maternal supportiveness, and paternal involvement","authors":"Jeong Jin Yu,&nbsp;Yuxin Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101760","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101760","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Early language skills and sustained attention are foundational for later academic and socioemotional development and may both shape and be shaped by caregiving over time. This study examined prespecified longitudinal reciprocal associations among children’s language skills, sustained attention, maternal supportiveness, and father involvement from infancy to middle childhood; indirect effects and moderation by child gender, Early Head Start participation, and home primary language were exploratory. Data came from 2925 children (49.0% girls) and families in the national Early Head Start Research and Evaluation project, with assessments from 14 months to 11 years. Multigroup structural equation modeling showed positive reciprocal associations between children’s language skills and sustained attention. Maternal supportiveness was positively associated with later sustained attention and language skills and was reciprocally associated with father involvement. However, sustained attention was negatively associated with later maternal supportiveness. Father involvement showed mixed longitudinal associations with child outcomes: involvement at 14 months was positively associated with sustained attention at 24 months, whereas involvement at 24 months was negatively associated with language skills and sustained attention at 36 months. Exploratory, false-discovery-corrected indirect-effect tests suggested pathways linking maternal supportiveness, language skills, and sustained attention over time. Exploratory moderation analyses indicated broadly similar patterns across child gender and Early Head Start participation, with a small number of home-language path differences. Findings suggest these constructs operate as interconnected developmental processes, while underscoring that caregiving-child associations were not uniformly positive.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101760"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148735142","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Follow-in joint attention supports word learning in American Sign Language","authors":"Allison Fitch,&nbsp;Amy M. Lieberman","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101738","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101738","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Research on spoken language has demonstrated the importance of joint attention for vocabulary acquisition. While this is most often described in multimodal interactions (shared visual attention infused with an auditory speech label), deaf children learning a sign language achieve joint attention differently: they make frequent gaze shifts between linguistic input from their interlocutors and the surrounding visual world. To date, few studies have examined joint attention in this visual context. In the current study, we analyzed dyadic play interactions between deaf children acquiring ASL (N = 61) and their caregivers to determine the timing and sequence of child gaze, caregiver attention-getting, and caregiver sign input during novel and familiar object labeling. We hypothesized that caregivers would sequence their object labels with visual attention, use follow-in labeling more than lead-in labeling (especially for novel objects) and use overt attention-getting cues more for novel objects than for familiar objects. We found that caregivers were sensitive to their child’s focus of attention and provided labels in sequence with shared visual attention, especially when labeling a novel object. Caregivers provided labels that most often referred to objects in the child’s focus of attention immediately prior to the label, and they tended to wait for their child to spontaneously look up before providing the label. Both the caregiver’s sensitivity and the child’s leading predicted child vocabulary scores. Taken together, findings suggest that during interaction, deaf children are adept at managing their own visual attention, and caregivers, keenly aware of their child’s attentional focus, play a supporting role in engaging in joint attention by providing labels at key moments to facilitate their child’s vocabulary building.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101738"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148499474","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Parental neglect, executive functions, and theory of mind in preschool children: A conditional process model","authors":"Utku Beyazit,&nbsp;Pınar Hataş,&nbsp;Gönül Taşçioğlu,&nbsp;Aynur Bütün Ayhan","doi":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101739","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.cogdev.2026.101739","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the present study, the relationships among parental neglect, executive functions, and theory of mind (ToM) in the preschool period were examined using a conditional process model. The research sample consisted of 336 typically developing preschool children and their mothers living in Ankara and Gaziantep, Türkiye. To obtain socio-demographic data, the Socio-Demographic Information Form was administered to mothers, the Multidimensional Neglectful Behavior Scale-Parent Form was used to assess their neglect levels, and the Childhood Executive Function Inventory-Parent Form was employed to evaluate their children’s executive functions. In addition, the Theory of Mind Scale was administered directly to children to assess their ToM skills. The findings revealed that executive functions played a partial mediating role in the association between parental neglect and ToM. Moreover, this mediation varied depending on the level of neglect, such that the explanatory role of executive functions on ToM became more prominent at higher levels of neglect. These results indicate that both cognitive skills and caregiving experiences should be considered together in children’s socio-cognitive development. Accordingly, it is recommended that early intervention programs be designed to support both the quality of parenting and executive function skills.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":51422,"journal":{"name":"Cognitive Development","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101739"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148499540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}