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.
{"title":"Reconciling the Context-Dependency and Domain-Generality of Executive Function Skills from a Developmental Systems Perspective","authors":"P. Zelazo, S. M. Carlson","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2156515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2156515","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"205 - 222"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42460349","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 : 2022-12-19DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2022.2156514
Santiago Vernucci, Ana García-Coni, E. Zamora, Rosario Gelpi-Trudo, María Laura Andrés, L. Canet‐Juric
ABSTRACT Cognitive flexibility refers to the ability to rapidly and accurately switch between tasks. It is regarded as a core dimension of executive functions and has been reported to improve during childhood and into early adulthood. For its evaluation, the task-switching paradigm is widely used. Switching between tasks or response sets imposes a series of costs on performance (i.e., mixing costs, global switch costs, local switch costs). There is less evidence analyzing switching performance in children than in other age groups, and few studies have specifically analyzed switching costs only in school-age children. In the present study, we aimed to analyze age-related changes in task switching in children aged 9–12 years old. We considered year-to-year changes in performance, specifically in response time based mixing costs, global switch costs, and local switch costs. To do this, we used a task switching measure to evaluate 231 children in Argentina, aged 9–12 years (M age = 10.94, SD = 0.88) who were aggregated into four age groups (9, 10, 11, and 12 years old). Results show consistent mixing costs, global switch costs, and local switch costs at each age. However, we did not find age-related differences in the magnitude of such costs. These results suggest that both the ability to maintain and select between two tasks, and to switch from one response set to another could be considered relatively constant during this period.
{"title":"Age-related Changes in Task Switching Costs in Middle Childhood","authors":"Santiago Vernucci, Ana García-Coni, E. Zamora, Rosario Gelpi-Trudo, María Laura Andrés, L. Canet‐Juric","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2156514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2156514","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Cognitive flexibility refers to the ability to rapidly and accurately switch between tasks. It is regarded as a core dimension of executive functions and has been reported to improve during childhood and into early adulthood. For its evaluation, the task-switching paradigm is widely used. Switching between tasks or response sets imposes a series of costs on performance (i.e., mixing costs, global switch costs, local switch costs). There is less evidence analyzing switching performance in children than in other age groups, and few studies have specifically analyzed switching costs only in school-age children. In the present study, we aimed to analyze age-related changes in task switching in children aged 9–12 years old. We considered year-to-year changes in performance, specifically in response time based mixing costs, global switch costs, and local switch costs. To do this, we used a task switching measure to evaluate 231 children in Argentina, aged 9–12 years (M age = 10.94, SD = 0.88) who were aggregated into four age groups (9, 10, 11, and 12 years old). Results show consistent mixing costs, global switch costs, and local switch costs at each age. However, we did not find age-related differences in the magnitude of such costs. These results suggest that both the ability to maintain and select between two tasks, and to switch from one response set to another could be considered relatively constant during this period.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"420 - 437"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41389896","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 : 2022-12-18DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2022.2156516
A. Tsui, C. Atance
ABSTRACT Children’s ability to save emerges during the preschool years, but little is known about the different forms saving takes (and whether these relate) and the mechanisms driving its development. Because research with adults suggests that different aspects of future orientation increase adults’ propensity to save, we explored whether, in a sample of 71 3- to 5-year-olds tested in a university laboratory in Ottawa, Canada, the ability to mentally pre-experience the future (or “episodic future thinking”) predicted saving in two different contexts. In the first, using a “Saving marbles” task, we assessed children’s capacity to save for a larger reward in the near future. In the second, using a newly developed “Saving candies” task, we assessed children’s capacity to save a certain amount of resource for a more remote future time point, without necessarily reaping a larger future reward. Children were also given two delay of gratification tasks to determine whether these related to saving. Performance on both saving tasks was significantly related after controlling for age in months and verbal ability (r = .25, p = .041), a finding that suggests some coherence in early saving behaviors. However, we detected no significant associations between saving and delay of gratification. A series of regression analyses showed that episodic future thinking, as measured by three different tasks, did not predict saving. Our discussion focuses on why the capacity to think about the future may not predict saving in early development, and suggests viable avenues for future research in this area.
儿童的储蓄能力在学龄前就开始显现，但人们对储蓄的不同形式(以及这些形式是否相关)和驱动其发展的机制知之甚少。由于对成年人的研究表明，未来取向的不同方面会增加成年人的储蓄倾向，我们在加拿大渥太华的一所大学实验室对71名3至5岁的儿童进行了测试，研究了在两种不同情况下，心理上预先体验未来的能力(或“情景未来思维”)是否能预测储蓄。在第一个实验中，我们用“保存弹珠”的任务来评估孩子们为在不久的将来获得更大的奖励而存钱的能力。在第二个实验中，我们使用了一个新开发的“节省糖果”任务，我们评估了孩子们为更遥远的未来时间点节省一定数量资源的能力，而不一定会获得更大的未来奖励。孩子们还被分配了两个延迟满足的任务，以确定这些任务是否与储蓄有关。在控制了月龄和语言能力后，两项储蓄任务的表现显著相关(r = 0.25, p = 0.041)，这一发现表明早期储蓄行为存在一定的一致性。然而，我们发现储蓄和延迟满足之间没有显著的联系。一系列的回归分析表明，通过三个不同的任务来衡量的情景性未来思维并不能预测储蓄。我们的讨论集中在为什么思考未来的能力可能无法预测早期发展中的储蓄，并为该领域的未来研究提出了可行的途径。
{"title":"Young Children’s Saving and Their Episodic Future Thinking","authors":"A. Tsui, C. Atance","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2156516","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2156516","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Children’s ability to save emerges during the preschool years, but little is known about the different forms saving takes (and whether these relate) and the mechanisms driving its development. Because research with adults suggests that different aspects of future orientation increase adults’ propensity to save, we explored whether, in a sample of 71 3- to 5-year-olds tested in a university laboratory in Ottawa, Canada, the ability to mentally pre-experience the future (or “episodic future thinking”) predicted saving in two different contexts. In the first, using a “Saving marbles” task, we assessed children’s capacity to save for a larger reward in the near future. In the second, using a newly developed “Saving candies” task, we assessed children’s capacity to save a certain amount of resource for a more remote future time point, without necessarily reaping a larger future reward. Children were also given two delay of gratification tasks to determine whether these related to saving. Performance on both saving tasks was significantly related after controlling for age in months and verbal ability (r = .25, p = .041), a finding that suggests some coherence in early saving behaviors. However, we detected no significant associations between saving and delay of gratification. A series of regression analyses showed that episodic future thinking, as measured by three different tasks, did not predict saving. Our discussion focuses on why the capacity to think about the future may not predict saving in early development, and suggests viable avenues for future research in this area.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"438 - 457"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44273738","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 : 2022-12-12DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2022.2152032
J. Wang, E. Bonawitz
ABSTRACT Sometimes we should persist to succeed. But other times it might be wiser to give up on the task at hand and focus our energy on something new. Knowing whether a task is worth the effort potentially requires multiple capacities, including sensitivity to one’s own likelihood to succeed on the current problem, the associated costs with continuing to pursue it, and evaluation of opportunities for reward from the success. But these capacities may be particularly challenging for young children. Here we ask how young children are sensitive to cognitive cost (one’s capacity and the opportunity cost of persisting) and reward probability (how likely they are to receive a reward when succeeding) when making decisions. Using a simple counting task, we showed that 4- to 5-year-old children in the US (N = 40, pre-registered) chose to give up more when the task was more difficult (and therefore cognitively more costly), especially when the probability of reward was low. These results extend previous findings and suggest the ability to consider and evaluate cognitive cost and reward probability may be in place by 4 years of age.
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Pub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.1080/15248372.2022.2149527
Ege Kamber, Tessa R. Mazachowsky, Caitlin E. V. Mahy
ABSTRACT The development of children’s future-oriented cognition has become a popular research topic in the past two decades. Much of this research focuses on the preschool and middle childhood years, but very little is known about the future-oriented cognitive abilities of toddlers and young preschoolers. The present study investigated the emergence of future-oriented cognition in toddlerhood and explored its relation with cognitive (i.e., executive function, episodic memory, and self-concept) and language abilities (i.e., expressive vocabulary, parent-child talk, temporal word use, and time metaphor use). Parents (N = 205) of 2- to 3-year-old children residing in the United States participated in an online study in which they completed the Children’s Future Thinking Questionnaire (CFTQ) to assess their child’s future-oriented cognition in five key domains. Also, parent-report measures of executive function, self-concept, episodic memory, expressive vocabulary, parent-child talk, child’s temporal word use, and child’s use of time metaphors were administered. Children as young as 2-years-old demonstrated future-oriented abilities. However, parents of 2-year-olds had substantial missing data (e.g., “does not apply”), especially in the planning and prospective memory subscales of the CFTQ. Three-year-olds were rated higher than 2-year-olds on the planning and prospective memory subscales, but there were no differences in ratings for 2- and 3-year-olds on the saving, episodic foresight, and delay of gratification subscales. Episodic memory and time metaphor use were significant independent predictors of future-oriented cognition and thus, both abilities may play a fundamental role in the emergence of future-oriented cognition in young children.
{"title":"The Emergence and Development of Future-Oriented Cognition in Toddlerhood: The Contribution of Cognitive and Language Abilities","authors":"Ege Kamber, Tessa R. Mazachowsky, Caitlin E. V. Mahy","doi":"10.1080/15248372.2022.2149527","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2022.2149527","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The development of children’s future-oriented cognition has become a popular research topic in the past two decades. Much of this research focuses on the preschool and middle childhood years, but very little is known about the future-oriented cognitive abilities of toddlers and young preschoolers. The present study investigated the emergence of future-oriented cognition in toddlerhood and explored its relation with cognitive (i.e., executive function, episodic memory, and self-concept) and language abilities (i.e., expressive vocabulary, parent-child talk, temporal word use, and time metaphor use). Parents (N = 205) of 2- to 3-year-old children residing in the United States participated in an online study in which they completed the Children’s Future Thinking Questionnaire (CFTQ) to assess their child’s future-oriented cognition in five key domains. Also, parent-report measures of executive function, self-concept, episodic memory, expressive vocabulary, parent-child talk, child’s temporal word use, and child’s use of time metaphors were administered. Children as young as 2-years-old demonstrated future-oriented abilities. However, parents of 2-year-olds had substantial missing data (e.g., “does not apply”), especially in the planning and prospective memory subscales of the CFTQ. Three-year-olds were rated higher than 2-year-olds on the planning and prospective memory subscales, but there were no differences in ratings for 2- and 3-year-olds on the saving, episodic foresight, and delay of gratification subscales. Episodic memory and time metaphor use were significant independent predictors of future-oriented cognition and thus, both abilities may play a fundamental role in the emergence of future-oriented cognition in young children.","PeriodicalId":47680,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Cognition and Development","volume":"24 1","pages":"397 - 419"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49486644","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}
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