The logical syntax of number words: Theory, acquisition and processing

Recent work on the acquisition of number words has emphasized the importance of integrating linguistic and developmental perspectives [Musolino, J. (2004). The semantics and acquisition of number words: Integrating linguistic and developmental perspectives. Cognition93, 1-41; Papafragou, A., Musolino, J. (2003). Scalar implicatures: Scalar implicatures: Experiments at the semantics-pragmatics interface. Cognition, 86, 253-282; Hurewitz, F., Papafragou, A., Gleitman, L., Gelman, R. (2006). Asymmetries in the acquisition of numbers and quantifiers. Language Learning and Development, 2, 76-97; Huang, Y. T., Snedeker, J., Spelke, L. (submitted for publication). What exactly do numbers mean?]. Specifically, these studies have shown that data from experimental investigations of child language can be used to illuminate core theoretical issues in the semantic and pragmatic analysis of number terms. In this article, I extend this approach to the logico-syntactic properties of number words, focusing on the way numerals interact with each other (e.g. Three boys are holding two balloons) as well as with other quantified expressions (e.g. Three boys are holding each balloon). On the basis of their intuitions, linguists have claimed that such sentences give rise to at least four different interpretations, reflecting the complexity of the linguistic structure and syntactic operations involved. Using psycholinguistic experimentation with preschoolers (n = 32) and adult speakers of English (n = 32), I show that (a) for adults, the intuitions of linguists can be verified experimentally, (b) by the age of 5, children have knowledge of the core aspects of the logical syntax of number words, (c) in spite of this knowledge, children nevertheless differ from adults in systematic ways, (d) the differences observed between children and adults can be accounted for on the basis of an independently motivated, linguistically-based processing model [Geurts, B. (2003). Quantifying kids. Language Acquisition, 11(4), 197-218]. In doing so, this work ties together research on the acquisition of the number vocabulary with a growing body of work on the development of quantification and sentence processing abilities in young children [Geurts, 2003; Lidz, J., Musolino, J. (2002). Children’s command of quantification. Cognition, 84, 113-154; Musolino, J., Lidz, J. (2003). The scope of isomorphism: Turning adults into children. Language Acquisition, 11(4), 277-291; Trueswell, J., Sekerina, I., Hilland, N., Logrip, M. (1999). The kindergarten-path effect: Studying on-line sentence processing in young children. Cognition, 73, 89-134; Noveck, I. (2001). When children are more logical than adults: Experimental investigations of scalar implicature. Cognition, 78, 165-188; Noveck, I., Guelminger, R., Georgieff, N., & Labruyere, N. (2007). What autism can tell us about every . . . not sentences. Journal of Semantics,24(1), 73-90. On a more general level, this work confirms the importance of integrating formal and developmental perspectives [Musolino, 2004], this time by highlighting the explanatory power of linguistically-based models of language acquisition and by showing that the complex structure postulated by linguists has important implications for developmental accounts of the number vocabulary.     

Emotion-induced blindness reflects competition at early and late processing stages: An ERP study

Emotion-induced blindness (EIB) refers to impaired awareness of items appearing soon after an irrelevant, emotionally arousing stimulus. Superficially, EIB appears to be similar to the attentional blink (AB), a failure to report a target that closely follows another relevant target. Previous studies of AB using event-related potentials suggest that the AB results from interference with selection (N2 component) and consolidation (P3b component) of the second target into working memory. The present study applied a similar analysis to EIB and, similarly, found that an irrelevant emotional distractor suppressed the N2 and P3b components associated with the following target at short lags. Emotional distractors also elicited a positive deflection that appeared to be similar to the P_D component, which has been associated with attempts to suppress salient, irrelevant distractors (Kiss, Grubert, Petersen, & Eimer, 2012; Sawaki, Geng, & Luck, 2012; Sawaki & Luck, 2010). These results suggest that irrelevant emotional pictures gain access to working memory, even when observers are attempting to ignore them and, like the AB, prevent access of a closely following target.     

Fantasy play in 5- and 6-year-old children

We studied the verbal pretend play of 5- and 6-year-old boys and girls to delineate age and sex differences during the later preoperational period. Sixteen children with average language ability were paired by age and sex and were videotaped for three 15-min intervals. Verbal interactions were transcribed, and the pretend play was classified as object fantasy, imaginative action plans/themes, or fantasy roles. Language used for pretend play increased in proportion to all utterances with age. Older children referred to more invented objects than younger ones but primarily in the service of realistic action formats. Girls' conversations were scored as having significantly more verbal pretending than boys' and a higher proportion of it referred to play roles. There were both age and sex differences in the types of themes, toys used, and roles enacted, including more sex-typed behavior in older children. The continued increase in the proportion of pretend play to all verbal interaction with age and the characteristics of play behavior is consistent with developmental theory.     

Correlation of motor skill,mental rotation,and working memory in 3- to 6-year-old children

A relationship between motor processes and mental rotation has been suggested by current research; however, the influence of working memory on this relationship has not yet been determined. Therefore, a correlation between motor tests, paper–pencil and chronometric mental rotation tests, and working memory tests were conducted in 3- to 6-year-old children. A stepwise multiple-regression showed that 55.5% of the variance was explained by the working memory tests: digit span forward and Corsi forward. This indicates that working memory and executive functions may play an important role in mental rotation and motor processes.     

Reorientation in a small-scale environment by 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children

Geometric features of surfaces and local information are constitutive elements of spatial representations. A number of studies in animals (rats) and human children (24 months old) have shown that in a rectangular environment with a reward hidden in one of the corners, geometric properties predominate over local cues for search strategies. In contrast, monkeys and human adults are able to take into account both types of information (geometric and local) to reorient. So far, all of the experiments have been conducted in the locomotor space involving a navigational task. In the present study, we examined whether similar search patterns are found using a tabletop model of a rectangular room. Three groups of children (3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) and one group of adults were tested. Results show that geometric encoding appears only at 4 years of age, that is later than in the locomotor space. The joint use of geometry and local cues emerges at 5 years of age. These data show that similar types of processing are implemented in both manipulatory and locomotor space but not at the same time. The difference between locomotor and manipulatory tasks suggests that being immersed in the environment makes this separated processing easier than being confronted by a task for which the object is exterior to the participant.     

Relationships among age, sex, and lateral dominance for 3- to 6-year-old children performing unilateral stance

To assess influence of age, sex, and lateral dominance on children's unilateral stance, from 6 Houston area preschools and day-care centers, 121 subjects were randomly selected and judged by teachers as normal 3- to 6-yr-old children. The children were tested for eye, hand, and foot preference and were then classified on over-all dominance. Maximal duration of unilateral stance, or up to 60 sec., was tested on each foot. Means over age groups show progressive increase in duration of unilateral stance with increasing age. No sex differences were found. A stepwise multiple correlation-regression showed stance on the nondominant foot and age as the only significant variables in stance on the dominant foot. Clinically, this study can help in evaluating children for neurodevelopmental disorders.     

Temporal learning in 4 1/2- and 6-year-old children: role of instructions and prior knowledge

The present study investigates effects of different types of instructions (high-rate, interval, and minimal) during training with a fixed-interval schedule as a function of prior acquired temporal knowledge. A pretest was used to assess 4 1/2- and 6-year-old children's ability to understand the temporal parameters of a fixed-interval schedule of reinforcement. The results as a whole show that the control exerted by instructions given by the experimenter or elaborated by the subjects themselves on fixed-interval performance of young children depends on the interaction of two factors: development of verbal self-control skills and mastery of knowledge required by the rules forming the instructions.     

Use of context in question answering by 3-, 4- and 5-year-old children

This study investigates, within the theory of relevance of Sperber & Wilson (1995), how 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children (n = 45) use context when answering questions. The children were required to answer questions that placed differing contextual and processing demands on them, as predicted by the theory. The results indicate that an increasing ability to use complex contextual information was related to age and was reflected in the children's ability to answer questions appropriately. A developmental pattern became evident in terms of how the children assigned referents, enriched semantic underdetermination, and recovered implicatures. It also became evident that even at the age of 5 years 6 months the children were in the process of becoming more skilled at integrating contextually complex inferences. It was further shown how children's selection of the appropriate context, given the focus of the question, depended on how relevance was achieved in that context.     

Diet and gender influences on processing and discrimination of speech sounds in 3- and 6-month-old infants: a developmental ERP study

Early post-natal nutrition influences later development, but there are no studies comparing brain function in healthy infants as a function of dietary intake even though the major infant diets differ significantly in nutrient composition. We studied brain responses (event-related potentials; ERPs) to speech sounds for infants who were fed either breast milk (BF), milk-based formula (MF), or soy formula (SF) during the first 6 months of life. Two syllables presented in an oddball paradigm elicited a late positive wave (P350) from temporal and frontal brain regions involved in language processes. All groups showed significantly greater response amplitudes to the infrequent syllable across sites at 3 months and frontally at 6 months, but significant discrimination at temporal sites was only observed at 6 months in BF infants. Decreases in response amplitudes from 3 to 6 months were greater for the frequently presented syllable, most prominent in BF infants, and greater in females than males. The results indicate greater syllable discrimination in BF than formula-fed infants, but whether this can be attributed to dietary influences alone remains unclear. Feeding method and background factor differences between breastfed and formula-fed infants may also contribute to the observed differences. The general absence of differences between formula-fed groups is notable and suggests that milk-based formula and soy formula equally support brain development and function during the first post-natal 6 months. Finally, the results indicate gender differences in the development of neural and temporal processes involved in sensory discrimination, and suggest that at 6 months these processes are better developed in females.     

Episodic memory and episodic foresight in 3- and 5-year-old children

In the present study, we examined the development of episodic memory and episodic foresight. Three- and 5-year-olds were interviewed individually using a personalised timeline that included photographs of them at different points in their life. After constructing the timeline with the experimenter, each child was asked to discuss a number of different events: an event that happened yesterday, an event that happened earlier today, an event that would happen later today, and an event that would happen tomorrow. As judged by their parents, children's accounts were highly accurate. After controlling for age and language scores, there was a strong relation between amount of information reported about past and future events. Overall, 5-year-olds reported more total information than 3-year-olds; however, reports by 3-year-olds included a similar proportion of first-person reference as did reports by 5-year-olds. No age difference appeared in proportion of future-oriented talk. We conclude that the present task provides a promising method of exploring the emergence of mental time travel during early childhood.     

Clinical experience with guanfacine in 2- and 3-year-old children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Pediatric pharmacotherapy for 2- and 3-year-olds is not a well-explored area. Psychotropic agents, especially those not approved by the FDA for use in this age group, should only be prescribed after a thorough psychiatric evaluation and careful consideration of other treatment alternatives. This paper describes clinical experiences with guanfacine in four 2- and 3-year-old children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. All four children responded to small doses of guanfacine with improvement in behavior and decreased aggressiveness and destructiveness. When used in small doses, with careful monitoring, guanfacine can be an extremely valuable adjunct to the treatment of infants with aggressive and disruptive behavior. © 1997 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health     

Development of mental rotation in 3- to 5-year-old children

We assessed 3- to 5-year-olds’ mental rotation abilities using a new puzzle paradigm. It allows for assessment of mental rotation abilities in children younger than 5 years, using a task comparable to ones used with older children and adults. Children saw pairs of asymmetrical ghost figures, either as three-dimensional cut-outs or two-dimensional paper versions, in seven orientations. One of the ghosts fit into a hole if rotated right-side up – the other ghost was its mirror image and would not fit. Children were asked to turn the ghosts in their heads and choose the one that would fit into the hole. The number of children who chose the correct ghost above chance in the three-dimensional version of the task increased dramatically from 10% of 3-year-olds to 95% of 5-year-olds; average accuracy also increased significantly, from 54% to 83%. The two-dimensional paper version yielded similar results. These results indicate considerable development in mental rotation between 3 and 5 years.     

Imagery, encoding specificity, and prose recall in 6-year-old children

Partial pictures depict only selected portions of prose passages. Partial pictures hypothetically aid retention by inducing young children to generate imagery for nonpictured prose. Results from two hundred eighty-eight 6-year-old children indicated that (a) partial pictures at study facilitate recall, (b) identical study and retrieval prompts facilitate recall, and (c) imagery instructions and training do not affect retention. Partial pictures apparently help children to encode information more efficiently at study, but there is no evidence that young children generate images with the aid of the partial picture cues, nor that they have a retrieval deficit for these images as suggested by M. Ruch and J. Levin.     

Asymmetric recognition of pictures of cats as a function of age in 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children

In the present study it was investigated whether children recognized deletions more accurately than additions in pictures of animate objects as a function of age between 4 and 6 years. Children, presented pictures of cats with features added to or deleted from the original pictures, judged whether the pictures were the same or different as those in a test of recognition. Analysis showed both 5-yr.-olds and 6-yr.olds discovered deletions more accurately than additions. This asymmetric effect is in accord with that of adults, with whom the same stimuli were used in earlier research, but are contrary to previous studies in which additions were recognized more accurately than deletions when inanimate objects were stimuli. Asymmetric effects, that is, greater recognition accuracy for deletions may be related to children's being uncomfortable about modified pictures of animals.     

Autistic traits and neuropsychological performance in 6- to-10-year-old children: a population-based study

Clinical studies of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) provide evidence for poorer neuropsychological performance within specific domains compared to age, gender, and sometimes IQ-matched controls. Since recent evidence suggests that autistic symptoms form a spectrum that extends into the general population, it was our goal to evaluate the nature of the relationship between autistic traits and neuropsychological performance across the continuum in the general population. We examined neuropsychological performance across five different domains in 1019 6-to-10-year-old children participating in a population-based study of child development. Autistic traits were assessed when the children were 6 years of age using the Social Responsiveness Scale and ASD diagnoses were obtained via medical records. Neuropsychological functioning was measured using the NEPSY-II-NL and included the domains of attention and executive function, memory and learning, sensorimotor functioning, language, and visuospatial functioning. We found that children with higher autistic traits showed significantly lower neuropsychological performance in all domains investigated and that this association remained even after excluding children with the highest autistic traits or confirmed ASD. When comparing 41 children with confirmed ASD diagnosis to typically developing controls, children with ASD showed significantly lower neuropsychological performance across all domains. Taken together, our results suggest that children with both ASD and subclinical autistic traits have lower neuropsychological performance. Thus, this may provide an understanding of why some children without an ASD diagnosis may require some additional assistance within academic settings.     

Anchoring in 4- to 6-year-old children relates to predictors of reading

Previous studies suggest that anchoring, a short-term dynamic and implicit process that allows individuals to benefit from contextual information embedded in stimulus sequences, might be causally related to reading acquisition. Here we report findings from two experiments in which two previously untested predictions derived from this anchoring hypothesis were tested: (a) that anchoring facilitates rapid naming and phonological short-term memory in children prior to the onset of formal reading instruction and (b) that anchoring makes a unique contribution to performance in two early predictors of reading (letter knowledge and phonological awareness). In line with those predictions, naming times were faster and memory spans were longer under conditions that encouraged the use of anchoring processes than under conditions that afforded little anchoring. Furthermore, performance in the anchoring-affording condition predicted significant amounts of variance in phonological awareness and letter knowledge even after controlling for the contribution of the conditions that did not afford anchoring. Therefore, we suggest that anchoring might contribute to the development of reading-related processes during the preschool years independent of the development of specific reading-related skills such as phonological processing.     

Weight attitudes in 3- to 5-year-old children: Age differences and cross-sectional predictors

We examined weight attitudes in 118 3- to 5-year-old girls and boys. Children completed an interview in which they were asked to select a figure to represent a child with positive or negative characteristics from an array of figures varying from very thin to large, and also a figure representing their own perceived size. Mothers’ body dissatisfaction, internalization of the thin ideal and dieting were assessed. Children chose larger figures to represent negative compared to positive characteristics. The figure size selected for negative characteristics was significantly greater in 5- than 3-year-olds but there was no age variation in figure size selected for positive characteristics. Children's own perceived body size positively predicted the figure size selected for positive characteristics. Maternal body image attitudes predicted figure size selection for both positive and negative characteristics. Findings suggest children's social environments are important in the development of negative and positive weight attitudes.     

Information processing and movement optimization during development: kinematics of cyclical pointing in 5- to 11-year-old children

The authors studied the development of movement control in speed-accuracy tradeoff conditions in children aged 5-11 years and in adults performing cyclical pointings. Twelve difficulty levels (IDs), ranging from 2 to 6.58 bits, were defined (P. M. Fitts, 1954). Peak and time to peak velocity, acceleration, and deceleration, and acceleration profiles as a function of hand position (Hooke's portraits) were analyzed. Movement time decreased with age and was less affected by ID. Peak velocity and acceleration increased, acceleration and deceleration were decreasingly time consuming, and movement profiles turned to increased harmonicity with age and task easiness. Nevertheless, the developmental trends differed between parameters. Gain in velocity seemed chiefly dependent on improved muscular cooperation patterns before 7 years of age and on improved information processing from age 7 onward; achievement of an optimized strategy in the speed-accuracy tradeoff occurred at age 11 years.     

Visual control of manual aiming movements in 6- to 10-year-old children and adults

Recent results indicate that adults modulate their initial movement impulse toward a stationary visual target by processing visual afferent information. The authors investigated whether the mechanisms responsible for those modulations are already in place in young children or develop as the children grow older. Adults (n = 10) and 6-, 8- and 10-year-old children (ns = 6, 7, and 7, respectively) performed a video-aiming task while vision of the cursor they were moving was (acquisition) or was not (transfer) visible. The results indicated that within-participant variability of the initial impulse trajectory of the children's aiming movement leveled-off in acquisition between peak extent deceleration and the end of the initial impulse, whereas it increased linearly as movement unfolded in transfer. The results also indicated that children modulate their initial movement impulse when visual afferent information is available, although to a lesser extent than adults do, and strongly imply that contrary to past suggestions, the initial impulse of an aiming movement is not ballistic.     

Resolving power of the perceptual- and sensorimotor systems in 6- to 10-year-old children

Children aged 6 to 10 were tested on their ability to move accurately and to perceptually evaluate their motor response. Subjects performed a directional and an amplitude visuo-manual aiming task without vision of their moving limb. They were asked to correct their error, after completion of their movements, only if they felt they were not accurate. Terminal aiming errors and correction responses (adjustments) were analyzed, and threshold detection was determined relative to terminal aiming error. Action accuracy and evaluation of action accuracy are two abilities that do not develop synchronously. Moreover, the relationship between these abilities depends on whether accuracy and direction or amplitude are required. Amplitude undergoes more corrections than direction, suggesting that the spatial system of reference involved depends more upon the coding of the final position than on direction. Two spatial comparators, operating on the basis of two types of evaluation, seem to have a variably distinct contribution to movement and perception accuracy, according to age.