Social categories guide young children’s preferences for novel objects

To whom do children look when deciding on their own preferences? To address this question, 3‐year‐old children were asked to choose between objects or activities that were endorsed by unfamiliar people who differed in gender, race (White, Black), or age (child, adult). In Experiment 1, children demonstrated robust preferences for objects and activities endorsed by children of their own gender, but less consistent preferences for objects and activities endorsed by children of their own race. In Experiment 2, children selected objects and activities favored by people of their own gender and age. In neither study did most children acknowledge the influence of these social categories. These findings suggest that gender and age categories are encoded spontaneously and influence children’s preferences and choices. For young children, gender and age may be more powerful guides to preferences than race.     

Lion Kings or puppies: the influence of fantasy on children’s understanding of pretense

Many have thought that children have an early appreciation of the mind in the case of pretend play. Results from several experiments are against this. However, an experiment by Lillard (Body or mind: children’s categorizing of pretense, Child Development, 67 (1996), 1717-1734, Experiment 4) suggested that when a pretense is about a fantasy character, instead of a real entity, children might have a better understanding of the mind’s involvement. The present experiment tested this, and found that indeed, when pretending to be a fantasy character is at issue, 4-year-olds are significantly more apt to indicate the mind’s involvement. Several possible reasons for this result are discussed.     

Young children's understanding of displaced aggression

According to previous research, young children do not understand displaced aggression. The present study examines the early phases of the understanding of the causes of moderately and extremely displaced aggression. Preschool and kindergarten children (3 to 5 years of age) viewed eight videotaped episodes of displaced aggression. Their comprehension of this aggression was assessed by means of open ended questions and forced choice picture selections. By age 5 most children had some understanding of displaced aggression, but this understanding was not complete. The early understanding revealed in the present study may be due to the use of short, simple realistic videotaped episodes appropriate for the limited processing abilities of young children. Extreme displacement was not more difficult to understand than moderate displacement.     

The role of relational similarity in young children’s use of a scale model

The role of relational similarity in 3-year-old children’s understanding of the relation between a scale model and the space it represents was investigated in two studies. Relational similarity was manipulated by arranging the objects within the two spaces in either the same or different configurations; thus, the internal relations among the objects were either identical or very different. The pattern of results across studies revealed that multiple factors interacted to determine the children’s appreciation of the higher-level model–room relation. When other information about the model–room relation was provided via explicit instructions (Experiment 1), relational similarity did not affect performance. However, relational similarity did have a significant effect on performance when only minimal information regarding the model–room relation was given (Experiment 2). These results established that the children were sensitive to the relations among the objects within each space, as well as to whether those relations were similar across spaces. Furthermore, the results indicated that successful performance was supported by appreciation of the higher-level model–room relation, not merely the detection of individual object correspondences.     

Depth relationships in young children's drawings

It has been found in previous studies that attempts to represent the occlusion of a further object by a nearer one are infrequent in the drawings of young children (N. Ingram, The encoding of depth relations in children's drawing. Unpublished paper, Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, 1975; N. Freeman, D. Eiser, & J. Sayers, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 23, 305–314, 1977; M. Cox, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 26, 551–554, 1978). Possible explanations for this are considered. In the first part of the present study 64 children of mean age 6 years 10 months were asked to draw two opaque objects placed one behind the other. Previous findings were confirmed in that over two-thirds of the children drew the two objects separately in a horizontal or, more commonly, a vertical relationship. In the second part of the study the children were asked to draw an opaque object which they saw placed inside and/or behind a transparent glass beaker. All Inside Glass drawings showed the object within the confines of the glass, but half of the Behind Glass drawings showed the object to the side of, or above, the glass. Implications of these findings are discussed in terms of an orientation to the visual world rather than the visual field.     

Bases of young children's judgments about more

While the young child's difficulties in correctly comprehending the term less are well known, it appears less widely recognized that young children may also encounter difficulties with the term more. The present study shows that in a task which requires judgments about more to be based on the relative numerosity of sets, 3–4-year-old children may base their judgments on other parameters, such as the extent to which the sets are homogenous with respect to the color of their components. The implications of such findings are briefly considered.     

Level-ordering does not constrain children’s ungrammatical compounds

English-speaking children typically avoid using regular plurals in novel grammatical deverbal compounds as in rat eater but allow irregular plurals as in mice eater (Gordon, 1985). To explain these data, it has been argued that Kiparsky’s (1983) level-ordering model constrains the production of morphologically complex words, including those with which children have had little to no experience. If level-ordering can be supported, children should avoid regular plurals in their ungrammatical deverbal compounds like a breaker-bottle. Seventy-two English-speaking children were included in the present study, 36 from Britain and 36 from Canada. The results showed that 50% of the children who produced ungrammatical compounds included regular plurals in the compounds they produced. Conversely, none of the children who produced grammatical compounds included regular plurals. These results indicate that level-ordering does not constrain children’s production of ungrammatical compounds. These results raise the possibility that level-ordering may not be a valid constraint of children’s compounding in general.     

Spatial depth relationships in young children's drawings

Previous research suggests that young children do not attempt to represent depth relationships between objects in their drawings. The present study, however, showed that when both objects are visible and the children's attention is drawn to the depth relationship between them, most 5-, 6-, and 7-year-olds do attempt to portray this relationship.     

Learning to remember: Social-communicative exchanges and the development of children’s memory skills

For more than three decades, the question “What is memory development the development of?” has guided research on children’s memory. As theories and methodologies have evolved, so too has our knowledge of the mnemonic competencies of young children, and of age-related differences in memory performance. Unfortunately, however, current understanding of the development of memory is seriously limited, largely because the bulk of the literature is based on cross-sectional experiments. From our perspective, in order to increase our understanding of the development of children’s skills for remembering, it is necessary to conduct longitudinal studies that illuminate mechanisms underlying developmental change. In addition, experimental methods must be used to explore further the operation of these potential mediators of change. In this article, we review our own recent longitudinal and experimental research to illustrate how we are addressing a new call—to study both memory development and the development of memory.     

Internal spatial relationships in young children's drawings

Attempts to represent the occlusion of a farther object by a nearer one are infrequent in the drawings of 5- and 6-year-olds. Instead they typically draw the objects side by side or one above the other. This does not appear to reflect a limitation of skill (P. Light & E. MacIntosh, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1980, 30, 79–87) and it is hypothesized that it reflects the children's concern with the array of objects per se, as opposed to their own particular view of it. In the present study relatively complex objects were used in order to test the hypothesis that young children's drawings do in fact systematically reflect spatial relationships within the array. Ninety-seven children between 5 and 8 years of age drew two arrays, each being drawn four times in different orientations vis à vis the child. As predicted, the younger children's drawings contained much array-specific information but often no indication an all of the child's viewing position. In contrast, the older children's drawings were predominantly view specific, often containing little information about the arrays.     

Thinking about multiple identities boosts children’s flexible thinking

Studies of children's developing social identification often focus on individual forms of identity. Yet, everyone has multiple potential identities. Here we investigated whether making children aware of their multifaceted identities—effectively seeing themselves from multiple angles—would promote their flexible thinking. In Experiment 1, 6‐ to 7‐year‐old children (N = 48) were assigned to either a Multiple‐Identities condition where they were led to consider their multiple identities (e.g. friend, neighbor) or to a Physical‐Traits condition where they considered their multiple physical attributes (e.g. legs, arms). Children in the Multiple‐Identity condition subsequently expressed greater flexibility at problem‐solving and categorization than children in the Physical‐Traits condition. Experiment 2 (N = 72) replicated these findings with a new sample of 6‐ to 7‐year‐old children and demonstrated that a Multiple‐Identity mindset must be self‐relevant. Children who were led to think about another child's multiple identities did not express as much subsequent creative thinking as did children who thought about their own multiple identities. Experiment 3 (N = 76) showed that a Mmultiple‐Identity framework may be particularly effective when the identities are presented via generic language suggesting that they are enduring traits (in this case, identities depicted as noun phrases rather than verbal phrases). These findings illustrate that something as simple as thinking about one's identity from multiple angles could serve as a tool to help reduce rigid thinking, which might increase open‐mindedness in a society that is becoming increasingly diverse.     

Synergies between processing and memory in children’s reading span

Previous research has established the relevance of working memory for cognitive development. Yet the factors responsible for shaping performance in the complex span tasks used to assess working memory capacity are not fully understood. We report a study of reading span in 7‐ to 11‐year‐old children that addresses several contemporary theoretical issues. We demonstrate that both the timing and the accuracy of recall are affected by the presence or absence of a semantic connection between the processing requirement and the memoranda. Evidence that there can be synergies between processing and memory argues against the view that complex span simply measures the competition between these activities. We also demonstrate a consistent relationship between the rate of completing processing operations (sentence reading) and recall accuracy. At the same time, the shape and strength of this function varies with the task configuration. Taken together, these results demonstrate the potential for reconstructive influences to shape working memory performance among children.     

Recent research on children’s testimony about experienced and witnessed events

Research on memory development has increasingly moved out of the laboratory and into the real world. Whereas early researchers asked whether confusion and susceptibility to suggestion made children unreliable witnesses, furthermore, contemporary researchers are addressing a much broader range of questions about children’s memory, focusing not only on children’s frailties but also on their competencies. In this review, we emphasize work on factors that promote the retrieval and accurate recounting of experienced or witnessed events and the implications of these findings for forensic interview practices. Research shows that children are capable of providing accurate information about their experiences, although their ability to convey the information is affected not only by the qualities of their memories, but also by the types of retrieval mechanisms employed and the quality of the communication between them and their interlocutors. We thus discuss several characteristics of to-be-remembered events that affect memory and are relevant to children’s recall in applied settings; retrieval conditions and their effects on the amount and accuracy of the information that children report; and research on investigative interviews conducted in forensic contexts. Because many of the variables that influence memory are age-related, developmental changes in children’s ability to accurately report, and recount their experiences are highlighted.     

The effects of review on young children's memory for prose

The present study investigated the effects of review on young children's memory for prose. Prose passages were parsed into three levels of thematic importance. Five groups (128-year-old children each) participated in three experimental sessions, with each session separated by 1 week. During the first session all subjects listened to two passages. One week later, subjects in four of the groups received differing review experiences. During the third session, delayed retention was assessed. The data are interpreted to indicate that the repetition of the original learning experience was the most effective review; however, immediate reproduction following initial exposure also significantly attenuated forgetting. All groups favored the central passage ideas in their delayed recalls, regardless of their review treatment. The potential benefits of an immediate test as a review exercise was suggested.     

Exploring children’s movement characteristics during virtual reality video game play

There is increasing interest in the use of commercially-available virtual reality video gaming systems within pediatric rehabilitation, yet little is known about the movement characteristics of game play. This study describes quantity and quality of movement during Nintendo Wii and Wii Fit game play, explores differences in these movement characteristics between games and between novice and experienced players, and investigates whether motivation to succeed at the game impacts movement characteristics. Thirty-eight children (aged 7–12) with and without previous game experience played Wii (boxing and tennis) and Wii Fit (ski slalom and soccer heading) games. Force plate data provided center of pressure displacement (quantity) and processed pelvis motion indicated smoothness of pelvic movement (quality). Children rated their motivation to succeed at each game. Movement quantity and quality differed between games (p < .001). Children with previous experience playing Wii Fit games demonstrated greater movement quantity during Wii Fit game play (p < .001); quality of movement did not differ between groups. Motivation to succeed did not influence the relationship between experience and outcomes. Findings enhance clinical understanding of this technology and inform the development of research questions to explore its potential to improve movement skills in children with motor impairments.     

The effects of stimulus density on children’s analysis of hierarchical patterns

In three experiments, 4‐, 5‐, 6‐ and 8‐year‐olds and adults were asked to draw hierarchical letter and geometric forms from memory. Across the experiments, the number of elements comprising the hierarchical models was systematically varied. For each drawing of a hierarchical form, the quality of the participant’s reproduction of global and local level information was evaluated separately. Results showed that young children demonstrated significant analytic competence. However, the data also suggested that changes in stimulus density were more disruptive, in specific ways, to 4‐ and 5‐year‐old children’s processing than to that of the older children and adults.