Journal of Experimental Child Psychology最新文献

This study investigated the relationship between parental reports of children’s behavioral problems and their cheating behaviors on simulated academic tests, addressing a significant gap in understanding early childhood academic cheating and its potential links to broader behavioral issues. We hypothesized that children’s early problem behaviors would be predictive of their academic cheating. To test these hypotheses, children aged 4 to 12 years took part in six unmonitored academic tests that measured their cheating behaviors while their parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire elsewhere. Separate hierarchical linear regressions revealed that children’s problem behaviors, as reported by parents, overall significantly predict children’s cheating behaviors even after accounting for demographic variables such as age, gender, ethnicity, and parental religiosity. Specifically, the Conduct Problems subscale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire showed a significant and unique association with children’s cheating behaviors above and beyond the common contributions of all predictors. However, the Child Behavior Checklist scores and the scores on the other Strengths and Difficulties subscales were not significantly or uniquely related to cheating. These findings offer new insight into simulated childhood academic cheating and its relation to problem behaviors observed by parents.

Although vocabulary depth (VD) is recognized as a crucial factor in reading comprehension, the investigation of its role in reading comprehension remains insufficient. This study aimed to address two significant research gaps in this domain. First, empirical evidence is needed to explore the construct of VD knowledge, particularly within the Chinese language. Second, the underlying mechanism that connects VD and reading comprehension requires further clarification. In this study, a sample of 326 native Chinese students from Grade 4 participated in a comprehensive battery of tests assessing VD knowledge, word reading, and reading comprehension. Based on theoretical frameworks of VD knowledge, we measured six subtypes of VD knowledge: polysemy, collocation, word register, part-of-speech, semanticassociations, and homonyms. The results of factor analysis revealed that Chinese VD knowledge can be conceptualized as a two-factor construct, encompassing in-depth semantic knowledge (VD–meaning) and knowledge of word usage (VD–usage). Both VD-meaning and VD-usage demonstrated significant direct effects on reading comprehension, highlighting the critical role of VD in determining reading comprehension outcomes in Chinese. Furthermore, our findings indicated an indirect contribution of VD to reading comprehension, specifically through the mediating effect of word reading on the relationship between VD–meaning and reading comprehension. This study represents a pioneering empirical investigation that delved into the construct of VD in Chinese. In addition, we discuss the role of VD knowledge and its interaction with word reading in the context of Chinese reading comprehension, which could significantly enhance our understanding of the underlying mechanism that links vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension.

This study investigated whether and how each component of working memory (WM) and inhibitory control (IC) is related to analogical reasoning. Specifically, the mediating roles of analogical strategies were examined and compared across children and adults. In total, 79 children (50 girls; M ± SD = 8.43 ± 0.59 years old) and 77 adults (35 female; 19.44 ± 0.82 years old) were administered tests of WM, IC, and analogical reasoning. In addition, participants’ eye movement data during the analogical reasoning task were collected to classify the analogical strategies. The results showed that the semantic-constraint strategy completely mediated the relationship between WM (rather than IC) and analogical reasoning for children. However, for adults, the project-first strategy partially mediated the association between IC (rather than WM) and analogical reasoning. These findings reveal the dissociated roles of WM and IC in analogical reasoning through analogical strategies for children and adults and highlight the importance of analogical strategies.

Screen-based sedentary behavior (SSB) is a significant risk factor for the health of school-aged children, and guidelines recommend limiting SSB to 2 hr per day. This study aimed to examine association and potential mechanisms between SSB and executive function (EF) by comparing Stroop performance and frontal hemodynamic responses between children with and without excessive SSB. A total of 70 children aged 10 to 15 years were recruited and divided into two groups: excessive screen time (≥2 hr/day; n = 35; ES group) and normal screen time (<2 hr/day; n = 35; NS group). The Chinese version of the Adolescent Sedentary Activities Questionnaire was used to assess SSB, whereas EF was evaluated using the Stroop task. The frontal hemodynamic responses during the Stroop task were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. The results indicated that the ES group had lower accuracy, longer reaction times, and greater activation in the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and left pre-supplementary motor area (Pre-SMA) compared with the NS group. Furthermore, significant correlations were observed between Stroop performance and cortical activation in the left DLPFC and Pre-SMA. These findings demonstrate that excessive SSB is associated with poor EF, which may be explained by a decrease in neural efficiency of the left DLPFC and Pre-SMA.

This study examined children’s beliefs about a humanoid robot by examining their behavioral and verbal responses. We investigated whether 3- and 5-year-old children would treat the humanoid robot gently along with other objects and tools with and without a face and whether 3- and 5-year-olds would attribute moral, perceptual, and psychological properties to these targets. Although 3-year-olds did not treat objects gently or rudely, they were likely to affirm that hitting targets was acceptable despite targets having psychological and perceptual properties. Thus, 3-year-olds’ perception of the targets was incongruent with their behavior toward them. Most 5-year-olds treated a robot gently and were likely to affirm the robot’s psychological characteristics. Behaviors and perceptions of the robot differed between 3- and 5-year-olds. Thus, children may start believing that robots are not alive at age five, and they can distinguish them from other objects even when the latter have faces. Developmental changes in children’s animistic beliefs are also discussed.

The strategic use of deliberate omissions, conveying true but selective information for deceptive purposes, is a prevalent and pernicious disinformation tactic. Crucially, its recognition requires engaging in a sophisticated, multi-part social cognitive reasoning process. In two preregistered studies, we investigated the development of children’s ability to engage in this process and successfully recognize this form of deception, finding that children even as young as 5 years are capable of doing so, but only with sufficient scaffolding. This work highlights the key role that social cognition plays in the ability to recognize the manipulation techniques that underpin disinformation. It suggests that the interrelated development of pragmatic competence and epistemic vigilance can be harnessed in the design of tools and strategies to help bolster psychological resistance against disinformation in even our youngest citizens—children at the outset of formal education.

A solid understanding of fractions is the cornerstone for acquiring proficiency with rational numbers and paves the way for learning advanced mathematical concepts such as algebra. Fraction difficulties limit not only students’ educational and vocational opportunities but also their ability to solve everyday problems. Students who exit sixth grade with inadequate understanding of fractions may experience far-reaching repercussions that lead to lifelong avoidance of mathematics. This article presents the results of a randomized controlled trial focusing on the first two cohorts of a larger efficacy investigation aimed at building fraction sense in students with mathematics difficulties. Teachers implemented an evidence-informed fraction sense intervention (FSI) within their sixth-grade intervention classrooms. The lessons draw from research in cognitive science as well as mathematics education research. Employing random assignment at the classroom level, multilevel modeling revealed a significant effect of the intervention on posttest fractions scores after controlling for pretest fractions scores, working memory, vocabulary, proportional reasoning, and classroom attentive behavior. Students in the FSI group outperformed their counterparts in the control group, with noteworthy effect sizes on most fraction measures. Challenges associated with carrying out school-based intervention research are addressed.

Childhood is a sensitive period of development during which early life experiences can facilitate either positive or negative health trajectories across subsequent developmental periods. Previous research has established strong links between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and adverse health outcomes (e.g., sleep-related problems, pain, substance use). Despite this, less is known about positive childhood experiences (PCEs) and how they may buffer the effects of ACEs on health outcomes. The current study investigated whether PCEs moderate the associations between ACEs and health behavior and health-related outcomes (i.e., cannabis use, alcohol use, sleep disturbance, sleep-related impairment, pain intensity, and pain interference) in a sample of at-risk emerging adults. Participants (N = 165) were undergraduate college students (18–25 years of age) who reported frequent alcohol and/or cannabis use (≥3 times in the past week). A significant positive association was found between ACEs and cannabis use. There were also significant negative associations found between PCEs and pain interference and intensity. PCEs did not moderate any of the associations between ACEs and health behavior and health-related outcomes (i.e., cannabis use, alcohol use, sleep disturbance, sleep-related impairment, pain intensity, and pain interference). Findings suggest that PCEs may be unlikely to serve as a strong enough protective factor during early life to decrease risk for suboptimal health and health behaviors during emerging adulthood among individuals who report a greater accumulation of ACEs. Longitudinal research is needed to identify additional related risk and protective factors during early life to further support health and health behavior during this transitional period of development and beyond.

The question of whether finger use should be encouraged or discouraged in early mathematics instruction remains a topic of debate. Scientific evidence on this matter is scarce due to the limited number of systematic intervention studies. Accordingly, we conducted an intervention study in which first-graders (M_age = 6.48 years, SD = 0.35) completed a finger-based training (18 sessions of ∼ 30 min each) over the course of the first school year. The training was integrated into standard mathematics instruction in schools and compared with business-as-usual curriculum teaching. At the end of first grade and in a follow-up test 9 months later in second grade, children who received the finger training (n = 119) outperformed the control group (n = 123) in written addition and subtraction. No group differences were observed for number line estimation tasks. These results suggest that finger-based numerical strategies can enhance arithmetic learning, supporting the idea of an embodied representation of numbers, and challenge the prevailing skepticism about finger use in primary mathematics education.

This study investigated the role of dual- and single-language input in bilingual children’s word learning. In Experiment 1, 26 Spanish–English bilingual children aged 4 and 5 years (9 girls; 73% Latino; 65% White) learned novel words in single- and dual-language conditions. In the single-language condition, children learned English-like labels for novel objects. In the dual-language condition, the same children learned Spanish- and English-like labels for a different set of objects; all labels were produced by the same bilingual speaker, creating competition between the two languages. A second group of bilingual children (N = 25; 14 girls; 72% Latino; 40% White) participated in Experiment 2, which tested whether tagging language by speaker in the dual-language condition (mimicking the one person–one language input strategy) would influence performance. In both experiments, participants learned novel English words above chance (ps < .05) in both conditions, with better performance in the single-language condition. These results indicate an advantage for single-language learning contexts, but the theoretical roots and the practical value of this advantage are unclear.