Cognitive Development最新文献

Self-derivation through memory integration is the cognitive process of generating new knowledge by integrating individual facts. Across two studies, we longitudinally examined developmental change, individual stability, and relations with academic performance in a diverse agricultural community. We documented children’s self-derivation in their classrooms and examined the relation with self-derivation and academic performance a year later. In Study 1, we examined self-derivation (n = 94; M_age= 6.67; initially grades K and 1) using the same paradigm at both time points. We found evidence of developmental change from Time 1 to Time 2. However, self-derivation accounted for a small portion of the variance in self-derivation (reflecting individual stability) and academic performance measured one year later. In Study 2, we examined self-derivation across two different paradigms with children beginning in Grades 2 and 3 (n = 82; M_age= 8.60). Even across paradigms, we found evidence for individual stability. Year 1 self-derivation also predicted Year 2 academic performance. We posit that self-derivation through integration is a domain-general construct related to academic performance.

The present study introduces systematic data on the cognitive and linguistic abilities of refugee children. We tested 9–10 year-old Syrian refugee children (N = 25) on their cognitive abilities (i.e., working memory, shifting, inhibitory control, and fluid intelligence) and vocabulary knowledge in Arabic and Turkish. We compared their performance to two non-refugee control groups with low socioeconomic status, matched on age and mother’s education: Arabic-Turkish bilinguals (N = 29) and Turkish monolinguals (N = 19). Refugee children lagged behind both non-refugee groups in the fluid intelligence task. Compared to their bilingual peers, they showed poorer performance in working memory and shifting tasks. On the other hand, these scores matched their monolingual peers, with only slower performance in the shifting task. Greater exposure to trauma and poverty were predictors for lower scores in refugee children’s cognitive tasks. On the language tests, refugee children exhibited a smaller Turkish vocabulary size compared to both non-refugee controls. Trauma exposure, poverty and kindergarten attendance factors were significant predictors for this difference. As for the Arabic language skills, Syrian children outperformed their bilingual peers in Arabic. Although Syrian children displayed a more balanced bilingual profile, their performance in their dominant language (Arabic) was poorer than the bilingual control group’s performance in their dominant language (Turkish). Overall, the results suggest that refugee children’s working memory, shifting and fluid intelligence abilities, as well as mother tongue development, were negatively affected by forced displacement, but they were able to develop Turkish vocabulary skills and match Turkish monolinguals on both working memory and shifting abilities. This is the first piece of evidence suggesting that while being a refugee has adverse effects on children’s cognitive and linguistic development, holding bilingual status may actually create a protective shield in some cognitive abilities for disadvantaged refugee children.

In this study, we investigated whether preschool children can draw inferences about the emotional state of a film protagonist. A sample of 59 children aged 4 and 5 watched 20 scenes from a television show. Their ability to understand the protagonist’s emotional states was assessed using a reaction time task. Media sign literacy, theory of mind abilities, and the general understanding of the scenes were also evaluated. Our results show that even children aged 4 drew emotional inferences but only on a valence-based level (i.e., distinguishing between emotions of different valences). No exact inferences (i.e., distinguishing between emotions of the same valence) were drawn. There were no significant influences of media sign literacy or theory of mind on the inference generation, but general understanding of the film scenes was important.

Participants were 82 children aged 9–11 and 169 adults aged 18–65, majority White European; data were collected in Northern Ireland between January and June 2022. Children’s awareness of autism was assessed by asking what they know about autism. Children and adults also judged the extent to which a hypothetical autistic peer had capacity for mental experiences (emotions and personality traits). Emotions and personality traits varied between non-uniquely, or uniquely human, and the effect of valence (positive/negative) was also examined. We describe the extent to which children and adults attribute capacity for mental experiences to an autistic peer, and examine potential dehumanization of the peer through relative denial of uniquely human mental experiences. Denial of uniquely human mental experiences predicted how happy participants expected themselves (adults) and others (children and adults) to be about including the peer. Findings suggest children of this age hold fairly accurate representations of autism, and that dehumanization of autistic people may contribute to their exclusion by neurotypical peers.

Understanding relative quantities is crucial for many formal mathematical and everyday experiences, and its development has been examined using both probability judgment and proportion matching frameworks. The current study examines individual difference and developmental patterns that emerge within and between these frameworks, using computerized tasks administered within-subjects to a socio-demographically diverse sample of elementary school students (N = 96, 52 female, M_age = 8.56-years, 5.1–12.4) between kindergarten and fifth-grade. The results indicate that performance between the two task frameworks was correlated, and that age was significantly correlated with performance on both tasks. There were also differences across tasks, and children were overall more successful in their probability judgements than proportion matching. The findings, therefore, indicate some individual difference and cognitive developmental commonality across frameworks, but also that they are differentially effective in prompting relative quantity problem-solving strategies, which has implications for developmental research and theory and suggests a more nuanced approach to when children understand relative quantities is needed.

Investigating children’s susceptibility to visual illusions (VIs) offers a unique window into the development of human perception. Although research in this field dates back to the seminal work of Binet in 1895, developmental trajectories for many VIs remain unclear. Here, for the very first time, we provide a comprehensive systematic review of research investigating children’s susceptibility to five of the most famous VIs: the Ebbinghaus, Ponzo, Müller-Lyer, Poggendorff, and Vertical-Horizontal illusions. Following PRISMA best-practice guidelines, 70 articles were identified across four databases (Scopus, PsycInfo, PsycArticles, and Web of Science). Our findings reveal opposing developmental trends across illusions; the magnitude of the Müller-Lyer, Poggendorff, and Vertical-Horizontal illusions tends to decrease with age, while the magnitude of the Ebbinghaus and Ponzo illusions typically increases with age. However, developmental trajectories identified by studies investigating the same illusion can vary dramatically due to substantial variability in methods and stimuli. Researchers are more likely to find decreasing VI magnitude with increasing age when employing the method of adjustment response paradigm, whereas the two-way alternative forced-choice paradigm typically reveals greater VI magnitude with increasing age. These findings suggest that conclusions regarding the development of VI susceptibility may be influenced by how they are studied and implicate the involvement of different cognitive abilities across response methods. These findings will benefit future research in dissociating the role of perceptual (e.g. the maturation of the brain's visual areas) and cognitive factors (e.g., attention span) in pinpointing the development trajectories for VI susceptibility.

The self-reference effect (SRE) is a memory benefit found in both adolescents and adults that occurs when new information is connected to the self, facilitating improved recall and recognition. The memory benefit extends to close others, with adults better remembering information encoded in reference to close others as compared to information encoded in connection to an unfamiliar other or neutral control condition, but this has not yet been shown in younger adolescents. The present study examined the role of self and close other in source memory in 41 adolescents (10–14 years old) and 44 young adults (18–25 years old). Findings showed that participants had significantly better memory for information connected to the self and close other compared to other referent conditions and that patterns of memory across conditions are similar in both young adults and adolescents. These findings add to our understanding of the use of self and other referencing in memory in adolescents.

This study provides first insights into aha-experiences in infancy and childhood. In two studies, a content analysis of parental reports from two different populations, a Norwegian sample and an international sample of English-speaking parents, was conducted. Parents described 606 aha-stories of their children (age 3 weeks to 16 years). Three main findings were replicated across two studies: (1) Even infants may have aha-experiences; (2) Children have aha-experiences on various topics related to action and cognition; (3) The focus of aha-experiences shifts from action to cognition with age (3 weeks-8 years, Odds Ratios > 1.567). These findings may have implications for understanding what motivates children's learning and cognitive development and for future research.

Cramman et al. (2018) proposed that numerical symbol identification may constitute a universally predictive measure of early mathematical development. While a broad pathway to learning number symbols is unsurprising, lack of systematic variation in acquisition order relative to factors such as teaching, age, country, progression stage, is. This study evidences unidimensionality of measurement of the order of ability clusters of numbers, showing that variations are minor across eight countries and, importantly, six instructional languages. This invariance suggests early symbol identification could represent a universal measurement which could a) instructionally inform teaching and learning of classroom mathematics, b) work predictively as an educational research tool and c) offer a foundation for valid international comparisons of the mathematical development of children. Tentatively, this study suggests numerical symbol identification may be a universal measure to assess mathematical cognition in early years education that is unaffected by language of instruction, gender, time of assessment and country.

Little is known about how word recognition processes, such as decoding, change when reading fluency improves during the school year. Such knowledge may have practical importance by determining which aspects of reading are most malleable at a certain age and reading level. The development of word-recognition subprocesses of third- and fourth-grade Finnish students (n = 81) with variable reading fluency was explored from longitudinal (6-month) text reading eye-tracking data. Generic development of the word recognition system was assessed from longitudinal changes in first fixation, average refixation durations and the number of first-pass fixations. The development of orthographic word representations and decoding was studied by examining the longitudinal changes in word frequency and word length effects, respectively. According to the results, the gain in reading fluency was mainly associated with decreases in first fixation and refixation durations. These decreases, in turn, inhibited the reduction in the number of fixations. However, students who could overcome this inhibitory effect, that is, by reading both with shorter fixation durations and with fewer fixations, developed most in reading fluency. The results seem to indicate that reading fluency development is driven by increased efficiency in representing letter strings in working memory. Over time, this development may lead to fewer fixations made into a word and, thus, more letters processed during each fixation.