What makes the windows task difficult for young children: rule inference or rule use?

The windows task is difficult for young children. In this task, a child is shown two boxes with windows revealing that one is empty, whereas the other contains a treat. The child is asked to point to a box for an opponent to look in. The child then "wins" the contents of the other box (the treat). To pass the task, the child must use a rule such as "point to the empty box." But crucially, because the child is not told this rule by the experimenter, he or she must first infer it. Therefore, the windows task has two distinct requirements: (a) infer the rule "point to the empty box" and, once the rule is inferred, (b) use the rule by holding it in mind while inhibiting the prepotent response of pointing to the treat. In this study, the authors sought to determine which of these two requirements was responsible for poor performance on the windows task. They compared the performance of 3(1/2)-year-olds (N=40) on four tasks: the standard windows task, a version of the windows task that required rule use but not rule inference, and two versions of the day-night task that also required rule use but not rule inference. The relative performance on these four tasks and the pattern of correlations among them suggested that children had difficulty in inferring a rule that enables them to pass the task, whereas they had little difficulty in using the rule. Little evidence was obtained to suggest that the standard windows task requires inhibition.     

What makes a task difficult?

Summary This study explores the relationship between different task requirements and children's task performance and ratings of task difficulty. Four hundred and sixty five children (9 to 13 years old) read texts and answered questions, involving well-defined or ill-defined goals and requiring different thought operations. It was found that rated difficulty and performance were highly related for questions involving a well-defined goal. A simple modus ponens inference was easiest, checking most difficult, and recall of the text ranked in the middle. A question, involving an ill-defined goal was rated to be most difficult, whereas performance was quite high. The results confirm the assumptions that judgment of difficulty relies on two sources of information: 1) perception of goal, and 2) perception of processing effort.     

What makes a categorization task difficult?

To understand why some categorization tasks are more difficult than others, we consider five factors that may affect human performance--namely, covariance complexity, optimal accuracy level with and without internal noise, orientation of the optimal categorization rule, and class separability. We argue that covariance complexity, an information-theoretic measure of complexity, is an excellent predictor of task difficulty. We present an experiment that consists of five conditions using a simulated medical decision-making task In the task human observers view hundreds of hypothetical patient profiles and classify each profile into Disease Category A or B. Each profile is a continuous-valued, three-dimensional stimulus consisting of three vertical bars, where each bar height represents the result of a medical test. Across the five conditions, covariance complexity was systematically manipulated. Results indicate that variation in performance is largely a function of covariance complexity and partly a function of internal noise. The remaining three factors do not explain performance results. We present a challenge to categorization theorists to design models that account for human performance as predicted by covariance complexity.     

What Holds Asian Societies Together? Insights from the Social Cohesion Radar

Applied Research in Quality of Life -     

Inhibition and young children’s performance on the Tower of London task

Young children, when performing problem solving tasks, show a tendency to break task rules and produce incomplete solutions. We propose that this tendency can be explained by understanding problem solving within the context of the development of “executive functions” – general cognitive control functions, which serve to regulate the operation of the cognitive system. This proposal is supported by the construction of two computational models that simulate separately the performance of 3–4 year old and 5–6 year old children on the Tower of London planning task. We seek in particular to capture the emerging role of inhibition in the older group. The basic framework within which the models are developed is derived from Fox and Das’ Domino model [Fox, J., & Das, S. (2000). Safe and sound: Artificial intelligence in hazardous applications. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press] and Norman and Shallice’s [Norman, D.A., & Shallice, T. (1986). Attention to action: Willed and automatic control of behaviour. In R. Davidson, G. Schwartz, & D. Shapiro (Eds.), Consciousness and Self Regulation (Vol. 4). New York: Plenum] theory of willed and automatic action. Two strategies and a simple perceptual bias are implemented within the models and comparisons between model and child performance reveal a good fit for the key dependent measures (number of rule breaks and percentage of incomplete solutions) of the two groups.     

What would Batman do? Self‐distancing improves executive function in young children

This experimental research assessed the influence of graded levels of self‐distancing – psychological distancing from one's egocentric perspective – on executive function (EF) in young children. Three‐ (n = 48) and 5‐year‐old (n = 48) children were randomly assigned to one of four manipulations of distance from the self (from proximal to distal: self‐immersed, control, third person, and exemplar) on a comprehensive measure of EF. Performance increased as a function of self‐distancing across age groups. Follow‐up analyses indicated that 5‐year‐olds were driving this effect. They showed significant improvements in EF with increased distance from the self, outperforming controls both when taking a third person perspective on the self and when taking the perspective of an exemplar other (e.g., Batman) through role play. Three‐year‐olds, however, did not show increased EF performance as a function of greater distance from the self. Preliminary results suggest that developments in theory of mind might contribute to these age‐related differences in efficacy. These findings speak to the importance of psychological distancing in the expression of conscious control over thought and action from a young age and suggest a promising new avenue for early EF intervention.     

Factors responsible for performance on the day–night task: response set or semantics?

In a recent study Diamond, Kirkham and Amso (2002) obtained evidence consistent with the claim that the day-night task requires inhibition because the picture and its corresponding conflicting response are semantically related. In their study children responded more accurately in a dog-pig condition (see /day picture/ say "dog"; see /night picture/ say "pig") than the standard day-night condition (see /day picture/ say "night"; see /night picture/ say "day"). However, there is another effect that may have made the day-night condition harder than the dog-pig condition: the response set effect. In the day-night condition the names of the two stimuli ("day" and "night") and the two corresponding conflicting responses ("night" and "day") are from the same response set: both "day" and "night". In the dog-pig condition the names of the stimuli ("day", "night") and the corresponding responses ("dog", "pig") are from a different response set. In two experiments (Experiment 1 with 4-year-olds (n = 25); Experiment 2 with , 4-, 5-, 7- and 11-year-olds (n = 81)) children were tested on four experimental conditions that enabled the effects of semantics and response set to be separated. Overall, our data suggest that response set is a major factor in creating the inhibitory demands of the day-night task in children of all ages. Results are discussed in relation to other inhibitory tasks.     

What makes people happy? Decoupling the experiential-material continuum

Extant literature suggests that consumers derive more happiness from experiences (e.g., vacations) than from material possessions (e.g., furniture). However, this literature typically pits material against experiential consumption, treating them as a single bipolar construct of their relative dominance: more material or more experiential. This focus on relative dominance leaves unanswered questions regarding how different levels of material and experiential qualities each contribute to happiness. Four preregistered studies (N = 3,288), using hundreds of product categories, measured levels of material and experiential qualities using two unipolar items. These studies investigate recalled, evoked, and anticipated happiness. Results show a more nuanced view of the experiential advantage that is critical for future research and consumer theory: material and experiential qualities both have positive relationships with happiness. Further, there is no inherent trade-off between experiential and material qualities: consumers can enjoy consumption that is high on both (e.g., swimming pools and home improvements).     

Objects or locations in vision for action? Evidence from the MILO task

In the Multi-Item Localization task (MILO; Thornton & Horowitz, 2004), observers are asked to find an ordered sequence of targets. We can measure the influence of both past actions and future plans on search for the current target. Our previous work with static search arrays found evidence for both retrospective and prospective memory. Responding to a target eliminated its influence on subsequent responses, while observers consistently planned ahead at least one item into the future. Here we asked whether these effects were based in location- or object-based reference frames. We used dynamic arrays in which observers had to search for multiple moving targets. Our results suggest that observers can still plan ahead effectively in this dynamic environment, indicating that future target objects can be tracked as they change position. However, memory for previous targets is essentially eliminated, suggesting that locations, not objects, were being tagged in our previous work.     

Direct and indirect directives: What do young children understand?

This study deals with the comprehension of direct and nonconventional indirect directives by children 3 to 6 years old. It refers to both the philosophies of language and the psychological theories that favor the social and cognitive factors of language acquisition. Twenty-four 3- and 4-year-old children and twenty-four 5- and 6-year-old children performed a story completion task presented in the form of comic strips. The variables studied were children's age. linguistic nature of the utterance (direct or nonconventional indirect directives), and strength of the production context (strong or weak context). The results were (a) in contrast to most other studies, direct directives were better understood than indirect directives: (b) the comprehension of both indirect and direct directives depended on the production context of utterance; (c) 5- and 6-year-old children performed better than 3- and 4-year-old children. The detailed results are discussed in terms of types of comprchension of directives linked to comprehension of the speaker's intention.     

How do young children determine location? Evidence from disorientation tasks

Previous studies show that following disorientation children use the geometry of an enclosed space to locate an object hidden in one of the corners [e.g. (Hermer, L., & Spelke, E. (1996). Modularity and development: A case of spatial reorientation. Cognition, 61, 195-232)]. These studies have used a disorientation procedure that involves rotating the viewer (with eyes closed). Here, we examine 18- to 25-month-olds' spatial coding in two disorientation tasks--involving either viewer or space rotation. Importantly, the rotational movements in both tasks could not be visually tracked. Children were tested in either task (viewer- or space-movement) from either inside or outside a triangular (isosceles) space (with one unique and two equivalent corners). In the viewer-movement task, performance was above chance, regardless of which corner contained the object. In the space-movement task, performance was above chance at only the unique corner. On both tasks, performance was better from inside the space than from outside. The implications for how children determine location are discussed.     

What is specific to music processing? Insights from congenital amusia

Musical abilities are generally regarded as an evolutionary by-product of more important functions, such as those involved in language. However, there is increasing evidence that humans are born with musical predispositions that develop spontaneously into sophisticated knowledge bases and procedures that are unique to music. Recent findings also suggest that the brain is equipped with music-specific neural networks and that these can be selectively compromised by a congenital anomaly. This results in a disorder, congenital amusia, that appears to be limited to the processing of music. Recent evidence points to fine-grained perception of pitch as the root of musical handicap. Hence, musical abilities appear to depend crucially on the fine-tuning of pitch, in much the same way that language abilities rely on fine time resolution.     

What do children do in the rime-analogy task? An examination of the skills and strategies used by early readers

Despite the intense debate surrounding the use of orthographic analogy in the clue word paradigm, little is known about the skills and strategies children actually use and how these compare with their everyday reading of single words. This study, with 4- and 5-year-olds (N=125), supports previous work which suggests children rely on phonological, rather than orthographic, priming in the clue word task since children most frequently produced rhyming words in response to the clue word. The extent to which phoneme and rhyme-based skills, along with letter-sound knowledge, predicted children's performance in the analogy task and in a test of single word reading was contrasted and compared. Our findings suggested that the balance of skills which children drew upon was determined by the demands of the task. The implications of these findings for the validity of the 'orthographic'-analogy task and for teaching beginning readers is discussed.     

Why is learning to read a hard task for some children?

In this brief review of some of my research on reading disability, I argue that a child’s development into literacy has two major ontogenetic roots, one involving early informal literacy socialization and one related to phonological awareness. Although failure in reading acquisition might be a question of cultural deprivation, the dynamic interaction between genetic dispositions and environment must be acknowledged, especially in a society providing rich sources of print exposure. The crucial transition in literacy development involves a step from implicit to explicit control of the phonemic units of language. When the cipher of the alphabetic system is understood the child is equipped with a powerful instrument for self teaching. A primary source of reading disability is then related to problems of segmenting the speech stream into phonemic units. The poor functioning of the phonological module seems to be a circumscribed deficit not related to general cognitive ability. The causal and reciprocal relationship between phonological awareness and learning to read has been demonstrated in my research over 20 years. Some of these studies are briefly reviewed in this article. The preventive and remedial implications of the findings are rather obvious.     

What makes relational reasoning smart? Revisiting the perceptual‐to‐relational shift in the development of generalization

Development of reasoning is often depicted as involving increasing use of relational similarities and decreasing use of perceptual similarities (‘the perceptual‐to‐relational shift’). We argue that this shift is a special case of a broader developmental trend: increasing sensitivity to the predictive accuracy of different similarity types. To test this hypothesis, we asked participants (3‐, 4‐, 5‐year‐olds and adults) to generalize novel information on two types of problems – offspring problems, where relational matches yield accurate generalizations, and prey problems, where perceptual matches yield accurate generalizations. On offspring problems, we replicated prior findings of increasing relational matches with age. However, we observed decreasing relational matches on prey problems. Provided feedback on their responses, 3‐year‐olds showed the same trend. Findings suggest that the relational shift commonly observed in categorization and analogical reasoning may reflect a general increase in children's sensitivity to cue validity rather than an overall preference to generalize over perceptual similarity.     

What does "touch" mean to young children? An empirical study

This study examined 40 preschool children's understanding of the word touch. 24 drawings were presented one at a time to each child, and the children were instructed to describe each of the drawings and to classify them into drawings portraying touch or drawings showing no touch. 20 undergraduates were also interviewed. The same procedure was used, but in addition the undergraduates were asked to predict how preschool-age children would do on the same task. The results showed several ways in which the children's understanding of the word touch differed from that of an adult.     

What makes for good supervision and whose responsibility is it anyway?

This lecture draws on my recent book ‘Supervision in Counselling and Psychotherapy’ and considers the subject of the respective roles and responsibilities of the supervisor and the supervisee. The book is an introduction to psychodynamic supervision, and was intended primarily for those beginning to supervise, although it also has some interest for those who are more experienced and wanting the opportunity to reflect on their practice.

However, it has also generated interest among those who are in supervision, and, as anticipated, many of those present at the lecture were students currently in supervision as well as those beginning to supervise in various contexts. I therefore decided to focus in this paper on supervision as a joint effort. Supervisors need supervisees just as therapists need patients, and both have a role, albeit a different one, in making the process successful. I begin by thinking about the characteristics of good supervision – and importantly, some of the factors that make it a complex and at times a difficult task. I then go onto consider the process of supervision, the part each of us plays in making it productive, and how we can work collaboratively to gain an understanding of the patient.     

Is the acquisition of basic-colour terms in young children constrained?

We investigated whether the learning of colour terms in childhood is constrained by a developmental order of acquisition as predicted by Berlin and Kay [1969 Basic Color Terms (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press)]. Forty-three children, aged between 2 and 5 years and grouped according to language ability, were given two tasks testing colour conceptualisation. Colour comprehension was assessed in a spoken-word-to-colour-matching task in which a target colour was presented in conjunction with two distractor colours. Colour naming was measured in an explicit naming task in which colours were presented individually for oral naming. Results showed that children's knowledge of basic-colour terms varied across tasks and language age, providing little support for a systematic developmental order. In addition, we found only limited support for an advantage for the conceptualisation of primary (red, green, blue, yellow, black, white) compared to non-primary colour terms across tasks and language age. Instead, our data suggest that children acquire reliable knowledge of nine basic colours within a 3-month period (35.6 to 39.5 months) after which there is a considerable lag of up to 9 months before accurate knowledge of the final two colours (brown and grey) is acquired. We propose that children acquire colour term knowledge in two distinct time frames that reflect the establishment of, first, the exterior (yellow, blue, black, green, white, pink, orange, red, and purple) and, second, the interior structure (brown and grey) of conceptual colour space. These results fail to provide significant support for the order predicted by Berlin and Kay, and suggest, instead, that the development of colour term knowledge is largely unconstrained.