False memories in children and adults: age,distinctiveness, and subjective experience

This study investigated developmental trends associated with the Deese/Roediger-McDermott false-memory effect, the role of distinctive information in false-memory formation, and participants' subjective experience of true and false memories. Children (5- and 7-year-olds) and adults studied lists of semantically associated words. Half of the participants studied words alone, and half studied words accompanied by pictures. There were significant age differences in recall (5-year-olds evinced more false memories than did adults) but not in recognition of critical lures. Distinctive information reduced false memory for all age groups. Younger children provided with distinctive information, and older children and adults regardless of whether they viewed distinctive information, expressed higher levels of confidence in true than in false memories. Source attributions did not significantly differ between true and false memories. Implications for theories of false memory and memory development are discussed.     

The power of print: Children’s trust in unexpected printed suggestions

How do children evaluate the veracity of printed text? We examined children’s handling of unexpected suggestions conveyed via print versus orally. In Experiment 1 (N = 131), 3- to 6-year-olds witnessed a speaker either read aloud an unexpected but not completely implausible printed label (e.g., fish for a bird-like animal with some fish features) or speak the label without accompanying text. Pre-readers accepted labels in both conditions. Early readers often rejected spoken labels yet accepted them in the print condition, and in Experiment 2 (N = 55) 3- to 6-year-olds continued to apply them even after the print was obscured. Early readers accept printed testimony that they reject if only spoken, and the influence of text endures even when it is no longer visible.     

Conflicting perspectives mediate the relation between parents’ and preschoolers’ self-referent mental state talk during collaboration

We examined the relations between the referent of parents and preschoolers’ mental state talk during a collaborative puzzle-solving task (N = 146 dyads; n = 81 3-year-olds, n = 65 4-year-olds). The results showed that parents’ references to their own knowledge and beliefs (self-referent cognitive talk), and references to their child’s knowledge and beliefs (child-referent cognitive talk) were both related to children’s (primarily self-referent) cognitive talk. We then tested whether any of the observed relations could be explained by the presence of conflicting perspectives within the collaborative interaction. Mediational analyses revealed that conflicting perspectives mediated the positive relation between parents’ production of self-referent cognitive talk and child cognitive talk. By contrast, the positive relation between parents’ production of child-referent cognitive talk and child cognitive talk did not depend on the presence of this type of conflict. These findings highlight an important mechanism through which parents’ references to their own mind might promote children’s developing mental state talk in collaborative contexts.     

Preschoolers’ understanding of multiple orientations to reality: The adjectives task

Preschoolers’ understanding that an object can be accurately described using two different non-synonymous words was investigated using a task in which children (N = 36) had to judge which of two animals had provided correct adjectival labels for a series of pictures. For some pictures, only one animal provided a correct adjective, for some both animals were correct, and for some neither was correct. For all types of judgement, 4-year-olds outperformed 3-year-olds. Children in both age groups performed worst on trials where both animals were correct. Children's performance on the adjectives task related to concurrent understanding of the appearance–reality distinction, but not to false-belief task performance. Implications for children's mentalizing development are discussed.     

幼儿二维心理旋转能力发展的研究

在以旋转的米老鼠图形作为测试项目,对每半岁为一个年龄段共１３３名３．５一６．５岁的幼儿进行心理旋转的实验研究中发现,幼儿在４岁时已经开始建立心理旋转能力．其发展特征呈连续性;男女幼儿间有一定的性别差异存在,但统计结果提示无显著性意义;男女幼儿在５－６岁间都发现有一个负增长阶段,其原因不明。     

Contributions of response set and semantic relatedness to cross-modal Stroop-like picture-word interference in children and adults

Resistance to interference from irrelevant auditory stimuli undergoes development throughout childhood. To test whether semantic processes account for age-related changes in a Stroop-like picture-word interference effect, children (3- to 12-year-olds) and adults named pictures while listening to words varying in terms of semantic relatedness to the pictures and response set membership. In Experiments 1 and 2, with animal and clothing pictures, the interference effect observed in children, but not in adults, depended on the distractors' status as members of the response set. In Experiment 3, with unrelated pictures, adults, but not children, showed greater interference for trials with distractors in the response set. These results indicate developmental changes in picture-word interference involving the establishment of a response set in working memory.     

The Relation between Mind‐mindedness in Mothers with Borderline Personality Disorder and Mental State Understanding in their Children

This study investigated relations between mind‐mindedness in mothers with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and mental state understanding in their children. Participants were 20 mothers with BPD and 19 mothers without personality disorder and their children, aged 39–61 months. Children's mental state understanding was examined via a battery of theory of mind and emotion labelling tasks. Maternal mind‐mindedness was assessed by mothers' use of mental state references to describe their children relative to other attributes. Maternal BPD was associated with fewer references to children's mental states as well as poorer levels of mental state understanding in their children. Findings lend some empirical support to recent theoretical suggestions that BPD is associated with a reduced capacity for mentalization, as well as reduced capacity for mental state understanding in children of mothers with BPD. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

References to Mental States in Mother–Child Conversation in the Second Year of Life

Research into social influences on young children’s growing understanding of others’ inner states has highlighted the value of early conversational exchanges. This longitudinal study was aimed at investigating whether and how mothers changed their inner state words when children were 16 months olds (T1) and 4 months later (T2), and the children’ s ability to use references to mental states at 20 months. Overall language measures (e.g. number of words, mean length utterances) and internal state labels were analyzed during play interactions at T1 and T2 for the mothers, and at T2 for the children. Results highlighted that the mothers partially modified their mentalistic vocabulary over 4 months. Moreover, the use of maternal references directed to the other at T1 is linked to the children’s ability to use references with a commentary function at T2. Conversation with the caregivers during daily activity may constitute, for children, a key practice to enhance their metarepresentation skills.     

Structural priming of adjective-noun structures in hearing and deaf children

We examined priming of adjective-noun structures in Dutch hearing and deaf children. In three experiments, hearing 7- and 8-year-olds, hearing 11- and 12-year-olds, and deaf 11- and 12-year-olds read a prenominal structure (e.g., the blue ball), a relative clause structure (e.g., the ball that is blue), or a main clause (e.g., the ball is blue). After reading each prime structure, children described a target picture in writing. Half of the target pictures contained the same noun as the prime structure and half contained a different noun. Hearing 7- and 8-year-olds and 11- and 12-year-olds, as well as deaf 11- and 12-year-olds, showed priming effects for all three structures in both the same-noun and different-noun conditions. Structural priming was not boosted by lexical repetition in the hearing and deaf 11- and 12-year-olds; a lexical boost effect was observed only in the 7- and 8-year-olds and only in the relative clause structure. The findings suggest that hearing and deaf children possess abstract representations of adjective-noun structures independent of particular lexical items.     

The development of adaptive choice in a self-control paradigm

Sixteen girls (ages 4, 6, 9, and 12) performed on concurrent-chain schedules of reinforcement. The initial links were variable-interval 10-s schedules, and the terminal links offered a long delay (20, 30, 40, or 50 s) followed by two tokens or a short delay (10 s) followed by one token. Tokens were used to buy toys and sweets. The effect of increasing the delay to the large reward differed significantly across age groups. Whereas 6- and 9-year-olds maintained a strong preference for the larger, more delayed reward under all delay conditions, half of the 4-year-olds and all the 12-year-olds showed increasing preference for the small reward as the delay to the large reward increased. The results suggest a two-stage account of the development of self-control. In the first stage, behavior is increasingly controlled by reward size, as children learn how to wait for delayed rewards, and in the second phase behavior is increasingly controlled by reward rate, as children learn when it is in fact profitable to wait.     

汉字词和图片命名与分类的比较

采用命名与分类任务考察了汉字词和图片命名与分类的特点,揭示义符在汉字词和图片命名与分类中的作用。结果表明,汉字词和图片的命名与分类与拼音文字的词和图片的命名和分类既有共性,又有差异。汉字词和图片的命名与分类具有不对称性：汉字词的命名快于汉字词的分类,图片的分类快于图片的命名。义符对于汉字词和图片的命名与分类的影响具有不对称性：对汉字词的加工有重要影响,对图片的加工无影响;对汉字词的分类有重要影响,对汉字词的命名无影响。被试对有标示类别的义符的词的分类显著快于对无标示类别的义符的词的分类,甚至快于对图片的分类。所以如此,与汉字词的结构特点有关。汉字形声字多用义符来标记事物的类别,提供了重要的类别信息。根据上述结果,作者构建了汉字词和图片认知加工的综合模型     

Does word training increase or decrease interference in a stroop task?

First and second graders (6- and 7-year-olds) practiced reading 20 words. Before and after word training, they named pictures printed with and without these words as distractors. Of interest was whether training would enhance or diminish the interference created by these words in the picture-naming task. Results indicated that children who learned to recognize unfamiliar distractor words more accurately suffered more interference after training. In contrast, children who were already familiar with the words and learned to recognize them faster experienced less interference following training. Results are interpreted as supporting LaBerge and Samuels' model of automatic word processing. Effects of accuracy training are attributed to the elimination of attention as a requirement for processing distractor words. Effects of speed training are attributed to a reduction in the time consumed by distractor words in the central processor.     

Can pictures promote the acquisition of sight‐word reading? An evaluation of two potential instructional strategies

Sight‐word instruction can be a useful supplement to phonics‐based methods under some circumstances. Nonetheless, few studies have evaluated the conditions under which pictures may be used successfully to teach sight‐word reading. In this study, we extended prior research by examining two potential strategies for reducing the effects of overshadowing when using picture prompts. Five children with developmental disabilities and two typically developing children participated. In the first experiment, the therapist embedded sight words within pictures but gradually faded in the pictures as needed using a least‐to‐most prompting hierarchy. In the second experiment, the therapist embedded text‐to‐picture matching within the sight‐word reading sessions. Results suggested that these strategies reduced the interference typically observed with picture prompts and enhanced performance during teaching sessions for the majority of participants. Text‐to‐picture matching also accelerated mastery of the sight words relative to a condition under which the therapist presented text without pictures.     

Retrieval of Episodic Information From Memory: Comparisons Among 3- and 4-Year-Olds, 7- and 8-Year-Olds,and Adults

Young children's and adults' recall of episodic information was explored in 4 experiments. The task required participants to recall a target noun presented as the last item of a 4-noun string of related (either categorically or thematically) or unrelated words. Providing all 3 preceding nouns or a subset of them cued recall. Experiment 1 found that 7- and 8-year-old children's recall was better with pictures as opposed to text, and children showed performance equal to adults with thematically related pictorial stimuli. Using pictorial stimuli, Experiment 2 showed that the number of cues present at retrieval affected 7- and 8-year-olds' recall. Experiments 3 and 4 tested recall of episodic information in 3- and 4-year-olds using pictorial stimuli. The results suggested that young children also have access to episodic information in memory and the number of cues present at retrieval influenced recall. The findings are discussed in the context of children's memory for events.     

Verbal descriptions of spatial information can interfere with picture processing

Two studies are reported that tested the assumption that learning is improved by presenting text and pictures compared to text only when the text conveys non-spatial rather than spatial information. In Experiment 1, 59 students learned with text containing either visual or spatial contents, both accompanied by the same pictures. The results confirmed the expected interference between the processing of spatial text contents and pictures: Learners who received text containing spatial information showed worse text and picture recall than learners who received text containing visual information. In Experiment 2, 85 students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions, which resulted from a 2×2 between-participants design, with picture presentation (with vs without) and text contents (visual vs spatial) as between-participants factors. Again the results confirmed the expected interference between processing of spatial text information and pictures, because beneficial effects of adding pictures to text were observed only when the texts conveyed visual information. Importantly, when no pictures were present no differences were observed between learners with either visual or spatial texts contents, indicating that the observed effects are not caused by absolute differences between the two texts such as their difficulty. The implications of these results are discussed.     

主题还是分类学? 对事物分类倾向的发展研究

研究旨在探讨个体分类倾向的发展趋势与影响因素.实验一采用图片、文字两种方式呈现实验材料,并使用不同指导语.要求被试选择三个事物中关系更近的两个.结果表明,成人比儿童具有更显著的按照主题分类的倾向,实验材料的呈现方式对于被试分类倾向没有显著影响.实验二进一步考察了分类倾向的发展轨迹,随着年龄增长,个体按照主题划分事物的倾向增强,由倾向于按照分类学规则向按照主题分类的转变可能发生在小学低中年级之间.     

A new Method of Measuring Emotional Stability

Two age groups of children (6- and 10-year-olds) were told stories that could lead to a simultaneous experience of two different emotions. In half of these situations both of the impulses were negative; in the other half, one was positive and the other negative. The 6-year-olds were inclined to ignore one of the two emotion impulses, especially when the two emotions were of opposite kinds. Children's simultaneous experience of more than two emotions led to speculation about the origin of new emotions out of the blending of emotions. On the basis of a simple intensity index with every emotion, we could also investigate further the mutual intensity and influence of simultaneously occuring emotions.     

Preschoolers' Acquisition of Scientific Vocabulary Through Repeated Read-Aloud Events,Retellings, and Hands-On Science Activities

This study explored 3- and 4-year-old children's development of scientific vocabulary from participation in repeated interactive read-aloud events and retellings of three informational picture books about light and color, followed by hands-on science activities. Thirty-two children attending a YWCA preschool were matched by age and general vocabulary knowledge and randomly assigned to a retelling or no retelling condition. Repeated measures ANOVA of pretest and posttest scores on a free recall target vocabulary test revealed significantly higher scores for 4-year-olds, those with higher vocabulary knowledge, and those who retold the books. Children used significantly more target words across the three retellings.     

The development of complex metarepresentational reasoning: The case of situational irony

Situational irony requires the representation of events that end contrary to expectation, as if in mockery of the fitness of things. It entails metarepresentational reasoning because event representations must be manipulated to recognize and construct ironic events. Ironic ability in 6-and 8-year-olds was tested in a story-completion task. Story stems based on a familiar event, for which a structured, detailed representation is available, were more facilitative of irony at both ages than stems based on a less familiar activity for which no such representation is available. These data support the idea that irony is a metarepresentational skill. Younger children's irony was restricted to ironic forms that entail cognitively simpler representational manipulations, whereas older children's irony included complex forms. Irony was not easily accomplished at either age, however, suggesting that this metarepresentational skill is more difficult than those theory-of-mind behaviors typical of 5-to 8-year-olds. The relation of Situational irony to consciousness and the self is discussed.