Pub Date : 2025-10-17DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106389
Jule Bach, Sabina Pauen
Preschoolers often imitate actions that are causally irrelevant, a phenomenon called “overimitation (OI)”. The present study examines how task context and language framing influence OI. A total of 160 four- to five-year-old German children from predominantly middle- to high-socioeconomic backgrounds participated in the study. All children performed the same OI task under four different conditions. They observed an adult model who demonstrated functional and non-functional actions before they themselves were allowed to retrieve a cookie from a transparent jar which could easily be opened by unscrewing the lid. This task was conducted either in a laboratory setting with an unfamiliar experimenter as model or at each child’s home with their caregiver as model. In both contexts, either a normative or a non-normative verbal instruction was used, resulting in a 2 × 2 between-subjects design. OI scores were not significantly affected by framing or context alone. However, a significant interaction was found between the two factors: a normative language led to more OI in the lab-context, but did not affect OI-scores in the home context. Implications of these findings for children’s sensitivity to context conditions and language framing in observational learning are discussed.
{"title":"“Watch me − This is how it should be done!” The effect of normative language on preschoolers’ overimitation occurs only in the lab but not at home","authors":"Jule Bach, Sabina Pauen","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106389","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106389","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Preschoolers often imitate actions that are causally irrelevant, a phenomenon called “overimitation (OI)”. The present study examines how task context and language framing influence OI. A total of 160 four- to five-year-old German children from predominantly middle- to high-socioeconomic backgrounds participated in the study. All children performed the same OI task under four different conditions. They observed an adult model who demonstrated functional and non-functional actions before they themselves were allowed to retrieve a cookie from a transparent jar which could easily be opened by unscrewing the lid. This task was conducted either in a laboratory setting with an unfamiliar experimenter as model or at each child’s home with their caregiver as model. In both contexts, either a normative or a non-normative verbal instruction was used, resulting in a 2 × 2 between-subjects design. OI scores were not significantly affected by framing or context alone. However, a significant interaction was found between the two factors: a normative language led to more OI in the lab-context, but did not affect OI-scores in the home context. Implications of these findings for children’s sensitivity to context conditions and language framing in observational learning are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106389"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145318662","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 : 2025-10-16DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106395
R.C. Plate , M. Flum , Y. Paz , E.R. Perkins , Y. Rodriguez , J. Herrington , J. Parish-Morris , R. Waller
Beginning in infancy, laughter promotes positive social interactions. However, laughter can also convey derision. Adults distinguish friendly from derisory laughter, appropriately modulating social behavior based on their perceptions of the laugher’s intent. Given the connection between laughter perception and broader social functioning, it is important to understand how this skill develops in young children who are initiating foundational early social bonds. Moreover, children who have difficulties forming and maintaining social bonds—including those with callous-unemotional (CU) traits—may show differences in correctly identifying and responding to laughter. Here, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (N = 150; 50% female) categorized laughter clips that varied in conveying affiliation (i.e., friendly) or dominance (i.e., mean) and reported on whether they wanted to play with the person producing the laughter. Children distinguished between laughter types, were accurate at detecting mean laughter, and showed increasing accuracy across ages 3 to 5 years. Children expressed a preference to play with friendly versus mean laughers, a distinction that sharpened from ages 3 to 5 years. Higher CU traits predicted lower accuracy for identifying mean laughs, with no CU-related difference for friendly laughs, though CU traits were not related to social preference. The findings provide the first evidence of young children’s ability to detect and appropriately adjust their behavioral intentions based on different communicative signals conveyed in laughter. Findings also suggest that these abilities may be relevant to young children who have difficulties with interpersonal interactions and social bonding.
{"title":"Detecting social cues conveyed by laughter and associations with callous-unemotional traits in early childhood","authors":"R.C. Plate , M. Flum , Y. Paz , E.R. Perkins , Y. Rodriguez , J. Herrington , J. Parish-Morris , R. Waller","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106395","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106395","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Beginning in infancy, laughter promotes positive social interactions. However, laughter can also convey derision. Adults distinguish friendly from derisory laughter, appropriately modulating social behavior based on their perceptions of the laugher’s intent. Given the connection between laughter perception and broader social functioning, it is important to understand how this skill develops in young children who are initiating foundational early social bonds. Moreover, children who have difficulties forming and maintaining social bonds—including those with callous-unemotional (CU) traits—may show differences in correctly identifying and responding to laughter. Here, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (<em>N</em> = 150; 50% female) categorized laughter clips that varied in conveying affiliation (i.e., friendly) or dominance (i.e., mean) and reported on whether they wanted to play with the person producing the laughter. Children distinguished between laughter types, were accurate at detecting mean laughter, and showed increasing accuracy across ages 3 to 5 years. Children expressed a preference to play with friendly versus mean laughers, a distinction that sharpened from ages 3 to 5 years. Higher CU traits predicted lower accuracy for identifying mean laughs, with no CU-related difference for friendly laughs, though CU traits were not related to social preference. The findings provide the first evidence of young children’s ability to detect and appropriately adjust their behavioral intentions based on different communicative signals conveyed in laughter. Findings also suggest that these abilities may be relevant to young children who have difficulties with interpersonal interactions and social bonding.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106395"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145313977","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 : 2025-10-16DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106392
Ricardo Moura
Ordinal knowledge plays a foundational role in early mathematics, yet little is known about how different forms of ordinal representation support preschoolers’ arithmetic. The present study investigated whether two types of count-list-based ordinal representations—rote counting and number ordering—mediate the relationship between symbolic cardinal knowledge and arithmetic performance in preschool children. Sixty-four preschool children (mean age = 67.3 months) completed a battery of tasks assessing cardinality, rote counting, number ordering, and arithmetic. Mediation analyses revealed that both rote counting and number ordering fully mediated the relationship between symbolic number comparison and arithmetic performance. Importantly, analyses showed that these mediators differentially supported arithmetic depending on problem complexity: rote counting was more strongly associated with simpler addition problems, while flexible number ordering predicted performance on more complex addition problems typically solved with overt counting strategies. These findings highlight the heterogeneous nature of ordinal representations and underscore their role as early supports for arithmetic, even before elementary school. Implications for understanding early ordinal representations and its use on education practices are discussed.
{"title":"Distinct ordinal representations mediate the influence of cardinal knowledge on Preschoolers’ arithmetic performance","authors":"Ricardo Moura","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106392","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106392","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ordinal knowledge plays a foundational role in early mathematics, yet little is known about how different forms of ordinal representation support preschoolers’ arithmetic. The present study investigated whether two types of count-list-based ordinal representations—rote counting and number ordering—mediate the relationship between symbolic cardinal knowledge and arithmetic performance in preschool children. Sixty-four preschool children (mean age = 67.3 months) completed a battery of tasks assessing cardinality, rote counting, number ordering, and arithmetic. Mediation analyses revealed that both rote counting and number ordering fully mediated the relationship between symbolic number comparison and arithmetic performance. Importantly, analyses showed that these mediators differentially supported arithmetic depending on problem complexity: rote counting was more strongly associated with simpler addition problems, while flexible number ordering predicted performance on more complex addition problems typically solved with overt counting strategies. These findings highlight the heterogeneous nature of ordinal representations and underscore their role as early supports for arithmetic, even before elementary school. Implications for understanding early ordinal representations and its use on education practices are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106392"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145313967","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 : 2025-10-15DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106393
Tânia Ramos, Carrie Georges, Christine Schiltz
Numbers and space are associated in the human brain. One of the most-studied spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) is the SNARC effect (Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes), for which robust group-level effects are reported across adult studies. Despite well-replicated group-level effects, recent individual-level analysis in adults indicate that only a minority of individuals consistently map numbers onto space (Cipora et al., 2019). To date, SNARC studies in children remain generally scarce with inconclusive results. And none have explored the consistency of individual effects at earlier developmental stages. In the present study, we therefore tested 135 kindergarten children performing magnitude judgments to assess not only group-level SNARC effects but also the prevalence of individual consistency using the same methodology recently applied in adults (Cipora et al., 2019). Our findings reveal a significant magnitude SNARC effect at the group-level. However, similarly to adults, only 37% of the children consistently associated numbers with space in a left-to-right direction when considering CIs around observed effects. While these findings suggest that SNAs on average emerge earlier in life, they also point towards considerable heterogeneity across individuals in that respect. How this can help us understand the conflicting results in the literature regarding significant group-level SNARC effects in children, and guide future research on the potential relation between individual SNARC effects and educational measures in math will be discussed.
在人脑中，数字和空间是联系在一起的。研究最多的空间-数值关联（SNAs）之一是SNARC效应（反应代码的空间数值关联），在成人研究中报道了强大的群体水平效应。尽管群体层面的效应得到了很好的复制，但最近对成年人的个人层面分析表明，只有少数人会持续地将数字映射到空间上（Cipora et al., 2019）。到目前为止，儿童SNARC的研究仍然很少，结果也不确定。也没有人研究过早期发育阶段个体影响的一致性。因此，在本研究中，我们测试了135名幼儿园儿童进行大小判断，不仅评估群体层面的SNARC效应，还使用最近应用于成人的相同方法评估个体一致性的普遍性（Cipora et al., 2019）。我们的研究结果揭示了群体层面上显著的SNARC效应。然而，与成人相似，只有37%的儿童在考虑到观察到的影响时始终将数字与左至右方向的空间联系起来。虽然这些发现表明，sna平均出现在生命早期，但它们也指出，在这方面，个体之间存在相当大的异质性。这将如何帮助我们理解文献中关于儿童显著群体水平SNARC效应的相互矛盾的结果，并指导未来关于个体SNARC效应与数学教育措施之间潜在关系的研究。
{"title":"Early development of spatial-numerical associations: consistency and variability of the SNARC effect in kindergarten children","authors":"Tânia Ramos, Carrie Georges, Christine Schiltz","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106393","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106393","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Numbers and space are associated in the human brain. One of the most-studied spatial-numerical associations (SNAs) is the SNARC effect (Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes), for which robust group-level effects are reported across adult studies. Despite well-replicated group-level effects, recent individual-level analysis in adults indicate that only a minority of individuals consistently map numbers onto space (<span><span>Cipora et al., 2019</span></span>). To date, SNARC studies in children remain generally scarce with inconclusive results. And none have explored the consistency of individual effects at earlier developmental stages. In the present study, we therefore tested 135 kindergarten children performing magnitude judgments to assess not only group-level SNARC effects but also the prevalence of individual consistency using the same methodology recently applied in adults (<span><span>Cipora et al., 2019</span></span>). Our findings reveal a significant magnitude SNARC effect at the group-level. However, similarly to adults, only 37% of the children consistently associated numbers with space in a left-to-right direction when considering CIs around observed effects. While these findings suggest that SNAs on average emerge earlier in life, they also point towards considerable heterogeneity across individuals in that respect. How this can help us understand the conflicting results in the literature regarding significant group-level SNARC effects in children, and guide future research on the potential relation between individual SNARC effects and educational measures in math will be discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106393"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145309637","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 : 2025-10-13DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106368
Yu Shan Huang, Tatiana Fugelso Rachlin, Lin Bian
Gender gaps in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) emerge as early as elementary school, highlighting the need for early interventions. Recent work suggests that a pretend play intervention, in which girls roleplayed as a hardworking scientist increased their persistence in a novel science activity. However, instead of highlighting scientists’ hard work, the pervasive cultural narrative portrays scientists as brilliant, a trait that girls associate less with their own gender than boys. The present study investigates whether pretending to be a brilliant scientist can also boost girls’ persistence. Experiment 1 tested a large and diverse sample of four- to seven-year-olds (N = 325, 164 girls, 55% White). Children played a science game in one of three conditions: as themselves (no-roleplay condition), as a hardworking scientist (dedication condition), or as a brilliant scientist (brilliance condition). Results showed that children in both the dedication and brilliance conditions persisted longer in the science activity than those in the no-roleplay condition. This effect was mainly driven by girls. Thus, pretend play of science role models enhances children’s science engagement, regardless of the role models’ characteristics. Experiment 2 (N = 160, 82 girls, 50% White) revealed that roleplaying as an artist did not yield the same effect, suggesting that pretending to be scientists, not pretend play in general, increased children’s persistence in science activities. These findings have broad implications for ways to mitigate the gender gap in science. We discuss possible mechanisms driving the role of pretend play in boosting children’s science engagement.
{"title":"Pretend play of scientists boosts young children’s, especially girls’, persistence in science","authors":"Yu Shan Huang, Tatiana Fugelso Rachlin, Lin Bian","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106368","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106368","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Gender gaps in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) emerge as early as elementary school, highlighting the need for early interventions. Recent work suggests that a pretend play intervention, in which girls roleplayed as a hardworking scientist increased their persistence in a novel science activity. However, instead of highlighting scientists’ hard work, the pervasive cultural narrative portrays scientists as brilliant, a trait that girls associate less with their own gender than boys. The present study investigates whether pretending to be a brilliant scientist can also boost girls’ persistence. Experiment 1 tested a large and diverse sample of four- to seven-year-olds (<em>N</em> = 325, 164 girls, 55% White). Children played a science game in one of three conditions: as themselves (no-roleplay condition), as a hardworking scientist (dedication condition), or as a brilliant scientist (brilliance condition). Results showed that children in both the dedication and brilliance conditions persisted longer in the science activity than those in the no-roleplay condition. This effect was mainly driven by girls. Thus, pretend play of science role models enhances children’s science engagement, regardless of the role models’ characteristics. Experiment 2 (<em>N</em> = 160, 82 girls, 50% White) revealed that roleplaying as an artist did not yield the same effect, suggesting that pretending to be scientists, not pretend play in general, increased children’s persistence in science activities. These findings have broad implications for ways to mitigate the gender gap in science. We discuss possible mechanisms driving the role of pretend play in boosting children’s science engagement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106368"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145294099","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}
{"title":"Corrigendum to “Infant-parent attachment and lie-telling in young children: The Generation R Study”. [J. Exp. Child Psychol. 247(2024) 106044]","authors":"Lisanne Schröer , Victoria Talwar , Maartje Luijk , Rianne Kok","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106390","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106390","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106390"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145270046","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 : 2025-10-07DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106367
Rumandeep K. Hayre, Madeleine Ingham, Shona Smith, Brooke Findel, Chloe Sargent, Sarah R. Beck, Melissa F. Colloff
Adults are adept at metacognitively monitoring their memory accuracy—both explicitly and implicitly—and at using metacognitive control to maintain high memory accuracy. However, the development of monitoring and control is less well understood. We administered an episodic cued recall task with children aged five to 11 years (N = 106). Participants watched two video clips of everyday episodic events before answering cued recall memory questions. For each memory question, participants provided a confidence rating (explicit monitoring), sorted their answer into show/hide boxes (control), and chose to volunteer/withhold their response (control). Multiple behavioural gestures of cognitive effort (implicit monitoring; e.g., looking to carer, non-word fillers) were recorded and later coded by blind raters. Children were less accurate and less able to assign confidence to reflect their memory accuracy when they were forced to generate a response after previously saying “I don’t know”. But on volunteered trials, explicit, implicit monitoring and control measures predicted memory accuracy. There were age-related improvements in explicit monitoring for predicting memory accuracy, but there were no age differences in implicit monitoring or control processes. We found evidence for both a direct and an indirect link between confidence and memory accuracy. Our findings suggest that explicit and implicit monitoring have different developmental trajectories in cued recall and that children can be adaptive to control their memory accuracy to a similar extent from early- to mid-childhood.
{"title":"The developmental trajectories of implicit and explicit metacognitive monitoring and control in cued recall","authors":"Rumandeep K. Hayre, Madeleine Ingham, Shona Smith, Brooke Findel, Chloe Sargent, Sarah R. Beck, Melissa F. Colloff","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106367","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106367","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Adults are adept at metacognitively monitoring their memory accuracy—both explicitly and implicitly—and at using metacognitive control to maintain high memory accuracy. However, the development of monitoring and control is less well understood. We administered an episodic cued recall task with children aged five to 11 years (N = 106). Participants watched two video clips of everyday episodic events before answering cued recall memory questions. For each memory question, participants provided a confidence rating (explicit monitoring), sorted their answer into show/hide boxes (control), and chose to volunteer/withhold their response (control). Multiple behavioural gestures of cognitive effort (implicit monitoring; e.g., looking to carer, non-word fillers) were recorded and later coded by blind raters. Children were less accurate and less able to assign confidence to reflect their memory accuracy when they were forced to generate a response after previously saying “I don’t know”. But on volunteered trials, explicit, implicit monitoring and control measures predicted memory accuracy. There were age-related improvements in explicit monitoring for predicting memory accuracy, but there were no age differences in implicit monitoring or control processes. We found evidence for both a direct and an indirect link between confidence and memory accuracy. Our findings suggest that explicit and implicit monitoring have different developmental trajectories in cued recall and that children can be adaptive to control their memory accuracy to a similar extent from early- to mid-childhood.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106367"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145253040","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 : 2025-10-06DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106371
Jamie Donenfeld, Mahita Mudundi, Erik Blaser, Zsuzsa Kaldy
Formal schooling places new demands on young children, requiring the inhibition of prepotent responses, sustained attention to instructions, and completion of academic tasks. Does this intense ‘training’ enhance children’s general cognitive abilities? Prior research exploits the arbitrary school entry cut-off date as a natural experiment, comparing same-age children in different grades. A schooling effect is noted when higher-grade children outperform age-matched peers in lower grades. However, evidence for this effect on executive functions remains mixed. Here, we use meta-analytic methods to quantify the schooling effect on executive functions for the first time. We identified 12 studies published between 1995 and 2023 (N 1,611 children, age 4.5 to 9 years, approximately 51 % female), containing a total of 33 effect sizes. A random-effects model combining 14 effect sizes (after accounting for dependencies and exclusions) revealed a small, but robust, schooling effect on children’s executive functions (g = 0.24, 95 % CI [0.13, 0.36]). This value provides an important reference point regarding the malleability of executive functions in early childhood.
{"title":"School changes minds: A meta-analysis shows that schooling modestly improves children’s executive functions","authors":"Jamie Donenfeld, Mahita Mudundi, Erik Blaser, Zsuzsa Kaldy","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106371","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106371","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Formal schooling places new demands on young children, requiring the inhibition of prepotent responses, sustained attention to instructions, and completion of academic tasks. Does this intense ‘training’ enhance children’s general cognitive abilities? Prior research exploits the arbitrary school entry cut-off date as a natural experiment, comparing same-age children in different grades. A <em>schooling effect</em> is noted when higher-grade children outperform age-matched peers in lower grades. However, evidence for this effect on executive functions remains mixed. Here, we use <em>meta</em>-analytic methods to quantify the schooling effect on executive functions for the first time. We identified 12 studies published between 1995 and 2023 (<em>N</em> <span><math><mo>≈</mo></math></span> 1,611 children, age 4.5 to 9 years, approximately 51 % female), containing a total of 33 effect sizes. A random-effects model combining 14 effect sizes (after accounting for dependencies and exclusions) revealed a small, but robust, schooling effect on children’s executive functions (<em>g</em> = 0.24, 95 % CI [0.13, 0.36]). This value provides an important reference point regarding the malleability of executive functions in early childhood.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106371"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145245439","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 : 2025-10-04DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106376
Gorka Ibaibarriaga , Joana Acha , Manuel Perea
{"title":"Corrigendum to “The impact of handwriting and typing practice in children’s letter and word learning: Implications for literacy development” [J. Exp. Child Psychol. 253(6) (2025) 106195","authors":"Gorka Ibaibarriaga , Joana Acha , Manuel Perea","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106376","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106376","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106376"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145222655","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 : 2025-10-02DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106370
Jessica Crimston, Thomas Suddendorf, Jonathan Redshaw
From the weather forecast to the traffic report, consideration of conditional probabilities plays a central role in our everyday lives. Yet much of the research on children’s understanding of probabilities has focused only on children’s ability to anticipate simple, single-cause outcomes in the immediate future. Here, we introduced a new paradigm for assessing children’s ability to reason about conditional probabilities. Specifically, we investigated 6- to 9-year-old children’s ability to take multiple, contingent steps into account when considering the probability of a marble passing through a series of branching tubes. Although children across ages performed above chance overall, correlational analyses revealed that many children seemed to rely on heuristics rather than engaging in conditional probabilistic reasoning. Individual-level categorizations of response patterns also indicated striking variability in children's strategies. With its minimal verbal demands and intuitive stimuli, our task opens up important new avenues for clarifying how humans across ages approach probabilistic tasks.
{"title":"Children’s understanding of conditional probabilities","authors":"Jessica Crimston, Thomas Suddendorf, Jonathan Redshaw","doi":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106370","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jecp.2025.106370","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>From the weather forecast to the traffic report, consideration of conditional probabilities plays a central role in our everyday lives. Yet much of the research on children’s understanding of probabilities has focused only on children’s ability to anticipate simple, single-cause outcomes in the immediate future. Here, we introduced a new paradigm for assessing children’s ability to reason about conditional probabilities. Specifically, we investigated 6- to 9-year-old children’s ability to take multiple, contingent steps into account when considering the probability of a marble passing through a series of branching tubes. Although children across ages performed above chance overall, correlational analyses revealed that many children seemed to rely on heuristics rather than engaging in conditional probabilistic reasoning. Individual-level categorizations of response patterns also indicated striking variability in children's strategies. With its minimal verbal demands and intuitive stimuli, our task opens up important new avenues for clarifying how humans across ages approach probabilistic tasks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48391,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Experimental Child Psychology","volume":"262 ","pages":"Article 106370"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145222653","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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