Children's Understanding of Referentially Opaque Contexts: The Role of Metarepresentational and Metalinguistic Ability

We investigated whether children's ability to deal with referentially opaque contexts could be predicted by both metarepresentational ability (false-belief understanding) and metalinguistic awareness (the ability to compare and evaluate statements containing referring expressions). Five- to 7-year-olds completed opacity, false-belief, metalinguistic awareness, digit-span, and vocabulary measures. Hierarchical regressions indicated that even after the variability from age, vocabulary, and digit span is taken into account, metarepresentational ability and metalinguistic awareness still significantly, and independently, explain some variability in referential opacity performance. These results are taken as support for the view that both metarepresentational ability and metalinguistic awareness are necessary in order to deal with referentially opaque contexts.     

Understanding Miscommunication: Speech Act Recognition in Digital Contexts

Successful language use requires accurate intention recognition. However, sometimes this can be undermined because communication occurs within an interpersonal context. In this research, I used a relatively large set of speech acts (n = 32) and explored how variability in their inherent face-threat influences the extent to which they are successfully recognized by a recipient, as well as the confidence of senders and receivers in their communicative success. Participants in two experiments either created text messages (senders) designed to perform a specific speech act (e.g., agree) or interpreted those text messages (receivers) in terms of the specific speech act being performed. The speech acts were scaled in terms of their degree of face threat. In both experiments, speech acts that were more threatening were less likely to be correctly recognized than those that were less threatening. Additionally, the messages of the more threatening speech acts were longer and lower in clout than the less threatening speech acts. Senders displayed greater confidence in communicative success than receivers, but judgments of communicative success (for both senders and receivers) were unrelated to actual communicative success. The implications of these results for our understanding of actual communicative episodes are discussed.     

Young Children's Motivation to Read and Write: Development in Social Contexts

In a 3-year longitudinal, mixed-method study, 67 children in two schools were observed during literacy activities in Grades 1–3. Children and their teachers were interviewed each year about the children's motivation to read and write. Taking a grounded theory approach, content analysis of the child interview protocols identified the motivations that were salient to children at each grade level in each domain, looking for patterns by grade and school. Analysis of field notes, teacher interviews, and child interviews suggests that children's motivation for literacy is best understood in terms of development in specific contexts. Development in literacy skill and teachers' methods of instruction and raising motivation provided affordances and constraints for literate activity and its accompanying motivations. In particular, there was support for both the developmental hypotheses of Renninger and her colleagues (Hidi & Renninger, 2006 Hidi, S. and Renninger, K. 2006. The four-phase model of interest development.. Educational Psychologist, 41(2): 111–127. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and of Pressick-Kilborne and Walker (2002) Pressick-Kilborn, K. and Walker, R. 2002. “The social construction of interest in a learning community.”. In Sociocultural influences on motivation and learning, Edited by: McInerney, D. and Van Etten, S. 153–182. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.  [Google Scholar]. The positions of poor readers and the strategies they used were negotiated and developed in response to the social meanings of reading, writing, and relative literacy skill co-constructed by students and teachers in each classroom. The relationship of these findings to theories of motivation is discussed.     

The Role of Contexts in Understanding and Explanation

In considering the Cambridge School of intellectual history, we should distinguish Skinner's conventionalism from Pocock's contextualism whilst recognising that both of them argue that the study of a text's linguistic context is at least necessary and perhaps sufficient to ensure understanding. This paper suggests that although "study the linguistic context of an utterance" is a valuable heuristic maxim, it is not a prerequisite of understanding that one does so. Hence, we might shift our attention from the role of linguistic contexts in understanding a text, to the role of ideational contexts in our explanations of meanings or beliefs. The explanatory role of contexts can be unpacked in terms of traditions and dilemmas. Here the paper also considers how this approach differs from that of the Cambridge School.     

Post-Cartesian Psychoanalysis and the Sociocultural Turn: From Cultural Contexts to Hermeneutic Understanding

This article addresses the tension between the defining impact of culture on human experience and the role of the person as agent. Focusing on the sociocultural turn in psychoanalysis, it examines the evolution of the notions of culture and the person, first in the culturalist psychoanalysis of Harry Stack Sullivan and Erich Fromm, and then in the hermeneutic turn of recent psychoanalysis. The article maintains that persons are inescapably shaped by the culture in which they live. At the same time, the manner in which individual psychology is organized and experienced within culture points to the role of agency as an emergent human potential. The article suggests that culture and personal agency are mutually reinforcing and that psychoanalysis must account for both. It develops a hermeneutic perspective as an alternative to postmodernism and concludes by outlining a post-Cartesian approach in psychoanalysis that addresses culture and the person in a non-dualistic fashion.     

Children's Developing Understanding of Place Value: Semiotic Aspects

This article is devoted to two interrelated semiotic aspects of the placevalue system: multiplicity of value and composition of values. Both aspects involve the basic characteristic of the placevalue system-the differentiation between face value and complete value. We explored whether a system that is intermediate between the written place-value system (multiplicity of value) and the base-10 manipulatives (no multiplicity of value) helps children understand the place-value system. The intermediate system that we designed, called FVCV (for face value and complete value), has a pseudomultiplicity of value. We report and discuss evidence that instruction and practice in the FVCV system helped children (a) to differentiate between the face value and the complete value of the digits in a multidigit place-value number representation and (b) to grasp that the complete values of the digits in a multidigit placevalue number representation add up to the total value.     

Made to Symbolize: Intentionality and Children's Early Understanding of Symbols

Rakison and Yermolayeva (this issue) argue that domain specificity is difficult to reconcile with U-, N-, or M-shaped developmental trends. They are justified because: 1) There is no compelling evidence that nonlinear trends require mechanisms beyond general, well-known cognitive processes; and 2) epigenetic neuroscience provides no clear evidence of strong domain-specialized representations. Evidence implies pervasive weak (i.e., experience dependent) neural specialization for different kinds of information.     

Naming Facilitates Young Children's Understanding of Scale Models: Language and the Development of Symbolic Understanding

Two studies examined language and understanding of scale models. First, children (N = 16; ages 2;4 to 3;5) received either the standard DeLoache model task or a naming version (in which children are asked to name the hiding location before retrieving a hidden object). Language ability positively correlated with performance on the model task, and children had significantly more errorless retrievals in the naming condition. Study 2 examined naming and transfer effects by giving children (N = 18; ages 2;5–3;1) both versions of the model task. Language ability correlated significantly only with performance in the naming condition. Both prior experience and naming condition significantly improved performance, with the effects being additive. Language and children's development of symbolic understanding are discussed.     

Learning What to Remember: Vocabulary Knowledge and Children's Memory for Object Names and Features

Although young children can map a novel name to a novel object, it remains unclear what they actually remember about objects when they initially make such a name–object association. In the current study we investigated (1) what children remembered after they were initially introduced to name–object associations and (2) how their vocabulary size and vocabulary structure influenced what they remembered. As a group, children had difficulty remembering each of the features of the original novel objects. Further analyses revealed that differences in vocabulary structure predicted children's ability to remember object features. Specifically, children who produced many names for categories organized by similarity in shape (e.g. ball, cup) had the best memory for newly‐learned objects' features—especially their shapes. In addition, the more features children remembered, the more likely they were to retain the newly learned name–object associations. Vocabulary size, however, was not predictive of children's feature memory or retention. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that children's existing vocabulary structure, rather than simply vocabulary size, influences what they attend to when encountering a new object and subsequently their ability to remember new name–object associations. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Early Reminiscing in Cultural Contexts: Cultural Models,Maternal Reminiscing Styles,and Children's Memories

The present study examined conversations of 164 mothers from seven different cultural contexts when reminiscing with their 3-year-old children. We chose samples based on their sociodemographic profiles, which represented three different cultural models: (1) autonomy (urban middle-class families from Western societies), (2) relatedness (rural farming families from non-Western societies), and (3) autonomy-relatedness (urban middle-class families from non-Western societies). The results showed that mothers from the autonomous contexts predominantly adopted an elaborative-evaluative reminiscing style (variable-oriented approach) and pattern (person-oriented approach). Mothers from the relational contexts mainly adopted a repetitive reminiscing style and pattern. There was greater heterogeneity for style variables among mothers from autonomous-relational contexts; in addition, the person-oriented approach revealed that the majority of mothers from autonomous-relational contexts showed hybrid style patterns. Thus, the cultural models, and their respective orientations towards autonomy and relatedness, were reflected in the way mothers reminisced with their children. The children's provision of memory elaborations was high in the autonomous contexts, low in the relational contexts, and moderate in the autonomous-relational contexts. Across contexts, maternal evaluations prompted children to contribute memory elaborations. Maternal elaborations were an additional predictor for children's memory, but only for families from the relational cultural model.     

Swazi Children's Understanding of Time Concepts: A Piagetian Study

The development of conservation skills in tasks dealing with temporal and nontemporal concepts was investigated. Contrary to findings of previous researchers, time conservation tasks presented few difficulties for children from a non-technological culture. Consistent with the results of previous research, however, time conservation tasks did appear to be more difficult than related tasks employing similar materials.     

Children's and Mothers' Contribution to Joint Reminiscing in Different Sociocultural Contexts: Who Speaks and What is Said

The study compares mothers' conversation with their 4‐year‐old children about two past events in two autonomy‐oriented (35 German and 42 Swedish families), one relatedness‐oriented (22 Cameroonian Nso families) and one autonomy‐relatedness oriented (38 Estonian families) contexts. German mothers were rather similar to Swedish mothers in talking a lot, providing a lot of information and engaging children into conversation, but they differed from Swedish mothers by talking more about social content. Swedish children were more independent conversational partners to their mothers than other children, including German children. Estonian mothers' contribution to conversation was similar to Cameroonian Nso mothers, except that they asked a lot of open‐ended questions to engage children in conversations. Estonian children did not differ from Swedish and German children in their contribution to conversations. Compared to Swedish mothers, past event talk of Estonian mothers was characterized by a bigger proportion of talk devoted to social content, but also to the child, mental states and non‐social content. It was characteristic of Cameroonian Nso mothers that they focused more on other people and actions, and their conversational dominance was larger. Differences in reminiscing were consistent with different cultural models of self and the type of autonomy – psychological or action – promoted. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

5～6岁儿童对书面数符号的表征和理解能力的发展

本研究对54名大班儿童的书面数符号表征和理解能力进行了跟踪调查。一年中三次面试结果表明,约85%的儿童(M=5:10)能运用书面数符号来表征30个以上的物体的数量。至大班末,94%的儿童(M=6:4)能运用书面数符号来表征100个以上物体的数量。大班末儿童对20以内书面加法运算成绩好于20以上书面减法运算,他们在遇到需进位和借数的加减运算时会有困难。6岁儿童在对加减运算式表征中的符号-实物的转换上有困难,儿童书面数符号表征、书面加减运算及对书面加减运算式的表征之间有显著正相关。大学附属幼儿园儿童的书面数符号表征能力在大班上学期好于为一般居民服务的幼儿园儿童,但无显著差异;在大班末期,为一般居民服务的幼儿园儿童的得分反超大学附属幼儿园儿童的得分,但无显著差异。     

A New Look at Gaze: Preschool Children's Understanding of Eye-Direction

This study challenges the consensus view that children can judge what someone is looking at from infancy. In the first experiment 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children were asked to judge what a person in a drawing was looking at and which of two people was “looking at” them. Only 6% of 2-year-olds and young 3-year-olds passed both gaze-direction tasks, but over 70% passed an analogous point-direction task. Most older 3-year-olds and 4-year-olds passed all three tasks. Experiment 2 compared children's ability to judge what the experimenter was looking at with performance on the picture tasks. Three-year-olds performed significantly worse than 4-year-olds on the real life and picture gaze tasks. Performances on the two types of gaze task were highly correlated. Experiment 3 included stimuli with the additional cue of head-direction. Even the younger children performed well on these stimuli. These results suggest that, regardless of task format, children cannot judge what someone is looking at from eye-direction alone until the age of 3 years. Weaknesses in the evidence supporting the consensus view are highlighted and discussed.     

学习不良儿童的策略信念与理解水平

使用结构访谈法对120名儿童(其中学习不良儿童60名)的策略信念与策略理解水平进行了研究。结果显示:学习不良儿童组与一般儿童组的差异更多体现在对具体策略的元认知因果解释水平上,他们更多持有较低水平的“信息获得”解释,而对照组儿童则更多持有较高水平的“信息加工”解释,提示对策略理解水平的差异可能是导致学习不良儿童难以将新学到的策略主动应用到其它情景中去的一个重要原因。