Pub Date : 2023-02-26DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2023.2176854
Megan N. Norris, Catherine H McDermott, Nicholaus S. Noles
ABSTRACT Social categories are often defined by the boundaries that they form between individuals. However, many social structures describe complementary relationships between individuals, defining both the power that we hold over others and our obligations to them and vice versa. In two studies conducted in the U.S., we investigated a sample of primarily white, middle class children’s intuitions about social roles at ages 4, 5, and 6. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with two informants, one dominant (e.g., a mother) and one subordinate (e.g., a daughter). The informants gave conflicting instructions, and children determined whose instructions should be followed and which informant had more social power. Five- and 6-year-olds, but not 4 -year-olds, used social roles to determine which instructions should be followed, and children in all age groups selected the dominant informant as someone who held social power. In Experiment 2, we explored the breadth of this effect by having the same informants present conflicting information about food. Five- and 6-year-old participants trusted claims made by a dominant informant, but 4-year-olds did not prioritize claims made by either informant. At the same time, when asked who they would approach to learn about a new food, children did not prefer either informant. Together, these findings suggest that children’s understanding of hierarchical social roles emerges at a young age, changes over time, and influences their judgments in nuanced ways.
{"title":"Listen to Your Mother: Children Use Hierarchical Social Roles to Guide Their Judgments about People","authors":"Megan N. Norris, Catherine H McDermott, Nicholaus S. Noles","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2023.2176854","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2023.2176854","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Social categories are often defined by the boundaries that they form between individuals. However, many social structures describe complementary relationships between individuals, defining both the power that we hold over others and our obligations to them and vice versa. In two studies conducted in the U.S., we investigated a sample of primarily white, middle class children’s intuitions about social roles at ages 4, 5, and 6. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with two informants, one dominant (e.g., a mother) and one subordinate (e.g., a daughter). The informants gave conflicting instructions, and children determined whose instructions should be followed and which informant had more social power. Five- and 6-year-olds, but not 4 -year-olds, used social roles to determine which instructions should be followed, and children in all age groups selected the dominant informant as someone who held social power. In Experiment 2, we explored the breadth of this effect by having the same informants present conflicting information about food. Five- and 6-year-old participants trusted claims made by a dominant informant, but 4-year-olds did not prioritize claims made by either informant. At the same time, when asked who they would approach to learn about a new food, children did not prefer either informant. Together, these findings suggest that children’s understanding of hierarchical social roles emerges at a young age, changes over time, and influences their judgments in nuanced ways.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"514 - 534"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42418370","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}
Pub Date : 2023-02-24DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2023.2178436
Kyra Wilson, Michael C. Frank, Abdellah Fourtassi
ABSTRACT In order for children to understand and reason about the world in an adult-like fashion, they need to learn that conceptual categories are organized in a hierarchical fashion (e.g., a dog is also an animal). While children learn from their first-hand observation of the world, social knowledge transmission via language can also play an important role in this learning. Previous studies have documented several cues in parental talk that can help children learn about conceptual hierarchy. However, these studies have used different datasets and methods that have made it difficult to compare the relative usefulness of various linguistic cues to conceptual knowledge and to test whether they scale up to naturalistic speech. Here, we study a large-scale corpus of English child-directed speech – collected in North America and the UK – and used a unified classification-based evaluation method which allowed us to investigate and compare cues that vary in terms of how explicit the information they offer is. We found the more explicit cues to be too sparse or too noisy in child-directed speech, making them unlikely to support robust learning. In contrast, the implicit cues offered a more reliable source of information. Further, we investigated developmental changes from 3 to 6 years of age, and we found no differences in the availability of these cues in the input. Our work confirms the utility of caregiver talk for conveying conceptual information and supporting the development of early taxonomic knowledge. It provides a first step toward a cognitive model that would combine perceptual- and language-based mechanisms, leading to a more comprehensive account of children’s conceptual development.
{"title":"Conceptual Hierarchy in Child-Directed Speech: Implicit Cues are More Reliable","authors":"Kyra Wilson, Michael C. Frank, Abdellah Fourtassi","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2023.2178436","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2023.2178436","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In order for children to understand and reason about the world in an adult-like fashion, they need to learn that conceptual categories are organized in a hierarchical fashion (e.g., a dog is also an animal). While children learn from their first-hand observation of the world, social knowledge transmission via language can also play an important role in this learning. Previous studies have documented several cues in parental talk that can help children learn about conceptual hierarchy. However, these studies have used different datasets and methods that have made it difficult to compare the relative usefulness of various linguistic cues to conceptual knowledge and to test whether they scale up to naturalistic speech. Here, we study a large-scale corpus of English child-directed speech – collected in North America and the UK – and used a unified classification-based evaluation method which allowed us to investigate and compare cues that vary in terms of how explicit the information they offer is. We found the more explicit cues to be too sparse or too noisy in child-directed speech, making them unlikely to support robust learning. In contrast, the implicit cues offered a more reliable source of information. Further, we investigated developmental changes from 3 to 6 years of age, and we found no differences in the availability of these cues in the input. Our work confirms the utility of caregiver talk for conveying conceptual information and supporting the development of early taxonomic knowledge. It provides a first step toward a cognitive model that would combine perceptual- and language-based mechanisms, leading to a more comprehensive account of children’s conceptual development.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"563 - 580"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41436218","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}
Pub Date : 2023-02-08DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2023.2172414
Joshua Medrano, R. Prather
ABSTRACT New perspectives on executive functions propose a greater involvement of context. These perspectives have implications for research in mathematical cognition. We tackle the problem that although individuals clearly exercise inhibitory control in mathematical contexts, researchers find that the relations between inhibitory control and mathematics are sometimes “weaker than expected.” In this review, we identify how children and adults use inhibitory control in specific foundational symbolic and non-symbolic mathematical contexts, with attention to concepts learned in primary (6 to 12) years. Then, we argue that considering context (e.g., task features, participant’s state, and prior knowledge) will allow researchers to thoroughly investigate the mechanistic role of cognitive processes involved in mathematical tasks.
{"title":"Rethinking Executive Functions in Mathematical Cognition","authors":"Joshua Medrano, R. Prather","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2023.2172414","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2023.2172414","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT New perspectives on executive functions propose a greater involvement of context. These perspectives have implications for research in mathematical cognition. We tackle the problem that although individuals clearly exercise inhibitory control in mathematical contexts, researchers find that the relations between inhibitory control and mathematics are sometimes “weaker than expected.” In this review, we identify how children and adults use inhibitory control in specific foundational symbolic and non-symbolic mathematical contexts, with attention to concepts learned in primary (6 to 12) years. Then, we argue that considering context (e.g., task features, participant’s state, and prior knowledge) will allow researchers to thoroughly investigate the mechanistic role of cognitive processes involved in mathematical tasks.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"280 - 295"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47017336","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}
Pub Date : 2023-02-08DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2023.2172413
Shachar Ben Izhak, M. Lavidor
ABSTRACT The field of cognitive training (CT) has been researched for over a century. However, there is still a debate regarding its ability to produce cognitive improvement, especially in working memory (WM) indices. This meta-analysis examined whether there is an advantage in training gains by comparing the results of two specific WM training approaches, Core Training (CRT) and Strategy Training (ST). Meta-analytic techniques were used to summarize 28 independent effect sizes from 24 studies with 1521 subjects, calculated only from studies that compared both training approaches in a single study. We found moderate effect sizes of trained tasks improvement with a clear advantage to ST over CRT, from which younger trainees benefitted the most. However, this advantage has almost disappeared for untrained tasks due to the limited improvement each approach produced on its own.
{"title":"Strategy and Core Cognitive Training Effects on Working Memory Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis","authors":"Shachar Ben Izhak, M. Lavidor","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2023.2172413","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2023.2172413","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The field of cognitive training (CT) has been researched for over a century. However, there is still a debate regarding its ability to produce cognitive improvement, especially in working memory (WM) indices. This meta-analysis examined whether there is an advantage in training gains by comparing the results of two specific WM training approaches, Core Training (CRT) and Strategy Training (ST). Meta-analytic techniques were used to summarize 28 independent effect sizes from 24 studies with 1521 subjects, calculated only from studies that compared both training approaches in a single study. We found moderate effect sizes of trained tasks improvement with a clear advantage to ST over CRT, from which younger trainees benefitted the most. However, this advantage has almost disappeared for untrained tasks due to the limited improvement each approach produced on its own.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"486 - 513"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47372958","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}
Pub Date : 2023-02-03DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2022.2160722
S. Gaskins, Lucía Alcalá
ABSTRACT Children’s development of executive function is a good candidate for studying cultural differences because it is a necessary capacity for becoming competent participants in cultural activities, and yet it is also likely to be shaped by culturally organized everyday experiences, with potential consequences for children’s development and learning. An ethnographically grounded study with Yucatec Maya children was conducted to explore cultural bias in existing theoretical constructs and methods. Yucatec Maya children autonomously organize their daily activities within a dense web of family social connections and work responsibilities. Yet small pilot samples of 4- to 8-year-olds were uninterested in and performed poorly on many traditional measures of EF due to a number of cultural assumptions inherent in the tasks’ logic and demands. Specific cultural road blocks were identified, including assumptions about motivation, task meaning, rules of social interaction, and specific cultural beliefs. Several novel tasks were then developed, comprised of contextually situated, goal-driven tasks, that children were more motivated to engage in. To check on the accuracy of our analysis we propose a design for a future comparative study consisting of a mix of traditional tasks (both culturally interpretable and culturally inappropriate for Yucatec Maya children), and novel, contextually embedded tasks that were engaging for Yucatec Maya children. We close with a cost/benefit analysis of using culturally meaningful research to study children’s development.
{"title":"Studying Executive Function in Culturally Meaningful Ways","authors":"S. Gaskins, Lucía Alcalá","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2160722","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2160722","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Children’s development of executive function is a good candidate for studying cultural differences because it is a necessary capacity for becoming competent participants in cultural activities, and yet it is also likely to be shaped by culturally organized everyday experiences, with potential consequences for children’s development and learning. An ethnographically grounded study with Yucatec Maya children was conducted to explore cultural bias in existing theoretical constructs and methods. Yucatec Maya children autonomously organize their daily activities within a dense web of family social connections and work responsibilities. Yet small pilot samples of 4- to 8-year-olds were uninterested in and performed poorly on many traditional measures of EF due to a number of cultural assumptions inherent in the tasks’ logic and demands. Specific cultural road blocks were identified, including assumptions about motivation, task meaning, rules of social interaction, and specific cultural beliefs. Several novel tasks were then developed, comprised of contextually situated, goal-driven tasks, that children were more motivated to engage in. To check on the accuracy of our analysis we propose a design for a future comparative study consisting of a mix of traditional tasks (both culturally interpretable and culturally inappropriate for Yucatec Maya children), and novel, contextually embedded tasks that were engaging for Yucatec Maya children. We close with a cost/benefit analysis of using culturally meaningful research to study children’s development.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"260 - 279"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-02-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45574610","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}
Pub Date : 2023-01-05DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2022.2160719
Paul Ibbotson
ABSTRACT This developmental account of executive function (EF) argues that domain-general analogical processes build a functional hierarchy of skills, which vary on a continuum of abstraction, and become increasingly differentiated over time. The paper begins by showing how a functional hierarchy can capture important aspects of EF development, including incrementalism, partial differentiation, and a shift from reactive to proactive control. It then details how children construct this hierarchy in development, by showing how they make functional analogies between similar EF problems, in a bottom-up incremental fashion. This results in EF structure which becomes differentiated into components which are more suited to solving some goal-directed problems than others. The developmental implications of this are that children eventually acquire task-general EFs while also retaining goal-specific skills sensitive to wider beliefs, values, norms, preferences, relevant motor, procedural, and embodied knowledge. There is discussion of how this approach is similar to and different from existing accounts, and how it relates to broader issues of training and transfer, group and individual differences, overlapping EF functions and domain-general learning. The developmental mechanisms advocated under this account intentionally draw on neuropsychological, learning and cognitive processes that have been demonstrated in other domains, so that EF theory can benefit from the lessons learned elsewhere and become more integrated with other areas of cognition.
{"title":"The Development of Executive Function: Mechanisms of Change and Functional Pressures","authors":"Paul Ibbotson","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2160719","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2160719","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This developmental account of executive function (EF) argues that domain-general analogical processes build a functional hierarchy of skills, which vary on a continuum of abstraction, and become increasingly differentiated over time. The paper begins by showing how a functional hierarchy can capture important aspects of EF development, including incrementalism, partial differentiation, and a shift from reactive to proactive control. It then details how children construct this hierarchy in development, by showing how they make functional analogies between similar EF problems, in a bottom-up incremental fashion. This results in EF structure which becomes differentiated into components which are more suited to solving some goal-directed problems than others. The developmental implications of this are that children eventually acquire task-general EFs while also retaining goal-specific skills sensitive to wider beliefs, values, norms, preferences, relevant motor, procedural, and embodied knowledge. There is discussion of how this approach is similar to and different from existing accounts, and how it relates to broader issues of training and transfer, group and individual differences, overlapping EF functions and domain-general learning. The developmental mechanisms advocated under this account intentionally draw on neuropsychological, learning and cognitive processes that have been demonstrated in other domains, so that EF theory can benefit from the lessons learned elsewhere and become more integrated with other areas of cognition.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"172 - 190"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42645850","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}
Pub Date : 2023-01-03DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2022.2159962
S. P. Nguyen, Catherine H McDermott
ABSTRACT This research investigates positive future expectancies, particularly hope in children, which is comprised of agency thinking, perceiving oneself as capable of achieving goals, and pathways thinking, perceiving oneself as capable of discovering methods toward the desired goals. Two studies (n = 82) were conducted in the United States to examine the role of agency and pathways thinking in children’s trait and state happiness based on children’s self-reports and their parents reports of their children. In Study 1, dyads of typically developing children (Mage = 10.21 years) and their parents (Mage = 43.84 years) completed measures of hope and happiness. Study 2 extended Study 1 to include a diverse sample of children with chronic health conditions (Mage = 11.14 years) and their parents (Mage = 43.48 years). In Study 1, regression analyses revealed that children’s self-reports of agency thinking predict children’s trait and state happiness, p’s < .05. Contrastingly, in Study 2, regression analyses revealed that children’s self-reports of pathways thinking predict children’s self-reports of trait happiness, p < .001. Also, collectively, pathways thinking, agency thinking, and children’s age predict children’s state happiness, p = .025. In both studies, parents’ reports of their children’s hope were not significant predictors of children’s happiness. There also was not an association between parents’ perceptions of their children’s hope and happiness and their children’s self-reported levels. These findings elucidate the cognitive aspects of hope that promote happiness in childhood and advance understanding of the determinants of children’s happiness in the U.S.
{"title":"Positive Future Expectancies: When Hopeful Thinking Contributes to Happiness in Children","authors":"S. P. Nguyen, Catherine H McDermott","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2159962","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2159962","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This research investigates positive future expectancies, particularly hope in children, which is comprised of agency thinking, perceiving oneself as capable of achieving goals, and pathways thinking, perceiving oneself as capable of discovering methods toward the desired goals. Two studies (n = 82) were conducted in the United States to examine the role of agency and pathways thinking in children’s trait and state happiness based on children’s self-reports and their parents reports of their children. In Study 1, dyads of typically developing children (Mage = 10.21 years) and their parents (Mage = 43.84 years) completed measures of hope and happiness. Study 2 extended Study 1 to include a diverse sample of children with chronic health conditions (Mage = 11.14 years) and their parents (Mage = 43.48 years). In Study 1, regression analyses revealed that children’s self-reports of agency thinking predict children’s trait and state happiness, p’s < .05. Contrastingly, in Study 2, regression analyses revealed that children’s self-reports of pathways thinking predict children’s self-reports of trait happiness, p < .001. Also, collectively, pathways thinking, agency thinking, and children’s age predict children’s state happiness, p = .025. In both studies, parents’ reports of their children’s hope were not significant predictors of children’s happiness. There also was not an association between parents’ perceptions of their children’s hope and happiness and their children’s self-reported levels. These findings elucidate the cognitive aspects of hope that promote happiness in childhood and advance understanding of the determinants of children’s happiness in the U.S.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"459 - 485"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2023-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46489326","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}
Pub Date : 2022-12-23DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2022.2160721
Steven J. Holochwost, Deaven Winebrake, E. Brown, Keith R. Happeney, N. Wagner, W. R. Mills-Koonce
ABSTRACT The predictive validity of performance on cognitive-behavioral measures of executive function (EF) suggests that these measures index children’s underlying capacity for self-regulation. In this paper, we apply ecological systems theory to critically evaluate this assertion. We argue that as typically administered, standard measures of EF do not index children’s underlying, trait-like capacity for EF, but rather assess their state-like EF performance at a given point in time and in a particular (and often quite peculiar) context. This underscores the importance of disentangling intra-individual (i.e., state-like) and inter-individual (trait-like) differences in performance on these measures and understanding how factors at various levels of organization may contribute to both. To this end, we offer an approach that combines the collection of repeated measures of EF with a multilevel modeling framework, and conclude by discussing the application of this approach to the study of educational interventions designed to foster children’s EF.
{"title":"An Ecological Systems Perspective on Individual Differences in Children’s Performance on Measures of Executive Function","authors":"Steven J. Holochwost, Deaven Winebrake, E. Brown, Keith R. Happeney, N. Wagner, W. R. Mills-Koonce","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2160721","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2160721","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The predictive validity of performance on cognitive-behavioral measures of executive function (EF) suggests that these measures index children’s underlying capacity for self-regulation. In this paper, we apply ecological systems theory to critically evaluate this assertion. We argue that as typically administered, standard measures of EF do not index children’s underlying, trait-like capacity for EF, but rather assess their state-like EF performance at a given point in time and in a particular (and often quite peculiar) context. This underscores the importance of disentangling intra-individual (i.e., state-like) and inter-individual (trait-like) differences in performance on these measures and understanding how factors at various levels of organization may contribute to both. To this end, we offer an approach that combines the collection of repeated measures of EF with a multilevel modeling framework, and conclude by discussing the application of this approach to the study of educational interventions designed to foster children’s EF.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"223 - 240"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45971223","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}
Pub Date : 2022-12-21DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2022.2160720
Aurélien Frick, N. Chevalier
ABSTRACT Cognitive control (also referred to as executive functions) corresponds to a set of cognitive processes that support the goal-directed regulation of thoughts and actions. It plays a major role in complex activities and predicts later academic achievement. Importantly, while growing up, children are progressively transitioning from engaging cognitive control in an externally driven fashion, i.e., relying on external guidance, to exerting it self-directedly, i.e., autonomously determining when and how to engage it. Although growing self-directedness in cognitive control engagement is critical to autonomy gains during childhood, relatively little is known about the underlying cognitive mechanisms. Incorporating previous main proposals in cognitive control development, we propose that self-directed control development is driven by the ability to identify relevant goals, facilitated through accumulated knowledge on how to engage cognitive control with age. Importantly, we argue that there are two key processes that are part of successful goal identification: context-tracking and goal selection. We argue that most developmental changes are linked to context-tracking as the demands on this process are particularly high in self-directed situations. We then derived main predictions from this theoretical model as well as promising future directions.
{"title":"A First Theoretical Model of Self-Directed Cognitive Control Development","authors":"Aurélien Frick, N. Chevalier","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2160720","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2160720","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Cognitive control (also referred to as executive functions) corresponds to a set of cognitive processes that support the goal-directed regulation of thoughts and actions. It plays a major role in complex activities and predicts later academic achievement. Importantly, while growing up, children are progressively transitioning from engaging cognitive control in an externally driven fashion, i.e., relying on external guidance, to exerting it self-directedly, i.e., autonomously determining when and how to engage it. Although growing self-directedness in cognitive control engagement is critical to autonomy gains during childhood, relatively little is known about the underlying cognitive mechanisms. Incorporating previous main proposals in cognitive control development, we propose that self-directed control development is driven by the ability to identify relevant goals, facilitated through accumulated knowledge on how to engage cognitive control with age. Importantly, we argue that there are two key processes that are part of successful goal identification: context-tracking and goal selection. We argue that most developmental changes are linked to context-tracking as the demands on this process are particularly high in self-directed situations. We then derived main predictions from this theoretical model as well as promising future directions.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"191 - 204"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48460900","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}
Pub Date : 2022-12-20DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2022.2156515
P. Zelazo, S. M. Carlson
ABSTRACT Executive function (EF) skills are a set of attention-regulation skills involved in intentional, goal-directed behavior that include (but are not limited to) the cool EF skills of working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control, and also the hot EF skill of intentional reevaluation. These skills are inevitably expressed in goal- and context-dependent ways, leading some to view EF skills as specific adaptations to particular problems and reinforcing interest in the use of more ecologically contextualized assessments. Appreciation of the context-dependency of EF skills adds to our understanding of how EF skills develop as a consequence of particular experiences and how they contribute to key developmental outcomes. There are good reasons, however, to view EF skills as relatively domain-general neurocognitive skills. Measured using standardized direct behavioral assessments, these skills are associated reliably with well-defined but distinct neural networks; they predict long-term developmental outcomes; and they can be trained in ways that produce far transfer. We argue that developmental systems models of EF skills can reconcile views of EF skills as relatively domain-general and views that emphasize the context-dependency of these skills. Ecologically adapted measures of EF skills can complement standardized measures that capture important age-related and individual differences and should remain a cornerstone of research on the topic. We believe this type of model will facilitate a deeper understanding of how multiple, simultaneous, and interacting causal influences, operating at many levels of analysis (cultural, social, cognitive, neural, and molecular), work together to produce conscious control.
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