Young Children's Sensitivity to Speaker Gender When Learning From Others

This research explores whether young children are sensitive to speaker gender when learning novel information from others. Four- and 6-year-olds (N = 144) chose between conflicting statements from a male versus a female speaker (Studies 1 and 3) or decided which speaker (male or female) they would ask (Study 2) when learning about the functions of novel objects. Some objects were in gender-typing colors (light pink or navy blue), and some were in a gender-ambiguous color (yellow). The results indicated that children did use speaker gender to guide their learning, by either consistently choosing to agree with the speakers of their own gender or making choices that are associated with gender stereotypes about color. The findings are discussed in relation to how in-group preference and stereotype attributions might influence children's learning from others.     

Children's Use of Social Cues When Learning Conventions

In a series of two experiments, we examined 5-year-old children's motivations for learning new conventional actions. Children watched two teachers open a novel container; the teachers differed in the nonfunctional, conventional actions they used in the process. In Experiment 1, one teacher spoke with a native accent and the other spoke with a nonnative accent. Children showed a preference for following the native-accented teacher, and this preference was interpreted as a motivation to match an in-group member. In Experiment 2, the speech accent of the teacher was crossed with explicit expressions of (un)certainty by the teachers. In this case, children preferred the more certain teacher, even when the certain teacher spoke with a nonnative speech accent. This preference was taken as demonstrating a utilitarian motivation that led to choosing the teacher most likely to have useful information. Taken together, these results suggest that by 5 years of age, children are motivated by both utilitarian and in-group considerations when selecting between sources of information; however, when forced to select between the two motivations, utilitarian concerns take precedent.     

Breaking the Rules When Others Do

People often speak as if the behaviour of others is relevant to the question of whether they are justified in violating a rule. This paper explores three lines of argument which might be used to justify rule violation on grounds appealing to what others do. The appeal to self-defence as a justification does not succeed, since it must expand the concept to involve a cumbersome weighing of harms. The argument that complying with a rule may involve too great a sacrifice in some cases needs to be developed by an account of when a sacrifice is morally significant. It is tempting, but problematic, to do this by weighing consequences of individual acts. An alternative approach is to argue that the behaviour of others is sometimes relevant to determining what rule is actually functioning in some context as a part of a particular moral system.     

Children's Use of Different Information Types When Learning Homophones and Nonce Words

This study examines whether 3-year-olds are able to use ontological distinctions in homophone and nonce word acquisition. In the homophone (denotation-1 present) condition, children heard stories introducing second meanings of homophones; for example, a skate (i.e., fish). Stories contained perceptual information, information about theory-based properties, or filler material. Children identified the referent from 3 drawings depicting the familiar meaning, the secondary meaning, and a distractor. In the homophone (denotation-1 absent) condition, the picture of the familiar meaning was replaced with a distractor. The nonce word condition, a control condition, was identical to the homophone (denotation-1 present) condition except that a nonce word replaced the homophone. Children were rarely able to construct a second homophone interpretation when the familiar denotation was available. Interestingly, in the remaining conditions, children used information about the animate-inanimate distinction in choosing the referent. We discuss children's use of this ontological distinction when inducing word meaning.     

Children's Original Thinking: An Empirical Examination of Alternative Measures Derived From Divergent Thinking Tasks

Children's creative potential is often assessed using cognitive tests that require divergent thinking, such as the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT; E. P. Torrance, 1974, 1976, 1990). In this study the authors investigated the effect of various scoring systems on the originality index, evaluating the high intercorrelation of fluency and originality measures found in the TTCT scoring system and the applicability of TTCT scoring norms over time and across age groups. In 3 studies, the originality of elementary school children was measured using TTCT norms and various sample-specific scoring methods with the TTCT Unusual Uses of a Box test as well as social-problem-solving tasks. Results revealed an effect of scoring technique on creativity indices as well as on the reliability of originality scores and the relationship between originality and other ability measures. The usefulness of the various measures for understanding children's original thinking are discussed.     

批判性思维

几乎每个人都赞成批判性思维,但事实上,它正在失去其应有之义。怀疑论者应努力澄清什么是批判性思维。我认为,怀疑论者一项主要职责就是要继续探索涉及批判性思维的一些基本问题：1．批判性思维的重要组成成分是什么? 2．那些声称增进批判性思维的人是正确地运用还是在破坏它?     

Participatory Cues and Program Familiarity Predict Young Children's Learning From Educational Television

The capacity model is designed to predict young children's learning from educational television. It posits that select program features and individual child characteristics can support this learning either by increasing total working memory allocated to the program or altering the allocation of working memory. In this study, the influence of one such program feature (participatory cues) and one such child characteristic (program familiarity) on educational content comprehension was investigated. A total of 187 American preschool-aged children (M = 4.35 years) were randomly assigned to view one of two versions of Dora the Explorer—one version contained participatory cues (i.e., cues that encourage children to respond to queries during the program) while in the other these cues were omitted. All children completed a program familiarity assessment prior to viewing and completed an educational content assessment post-viewing. There was no significant main effect for participatory cues, although, as expected, program familiarity was positively associated with educational content comprehension. In line with expectations, program familiarity was found to moderate the relationship between participatory cues and educational comprehension—the combination of high program familiarity and the presence of participatory cues led to the greatest educational content comprehension. Implications are discussed.     

Enduring Positivity: Children Of Incarcerated Parents Report More Positive Than Negative Emotions When Thinking about Close Others

ABSTRACT

Millions of children in the United States experience parental incarceration, yet it is unclear how this experience might shape social cognition. We asked children of incarcerated parents (N = 24) and children whose parents were not incarcerated (N = 58) to describe their parents. Both groups of children also rated the extent to which they agree that they feel positive and, separately, negative emotions when thinking about their parent and best friend. This approach allowed us to test between two alternative hypotheses. On the one hand, cultural narratives in the United States convey negative messages about incarcerated people, and these messages could prompt children to report negativity when thinking about their incarcerated parents. On the other hand, children’s positivity toward close others is robust. Thus, when thinking about their incarcerated parents, children may report a great deal of positivity. Consistent with the latter possibility, children were more likely to describe their incarcerated parents using positive rather than negative terms. Moreover, children of incarcerated parents were more likely to agree that thinking about close others made them feel positive emotions than they were to agree that thinking about close others made them feel negative emotions. A similar pattern of results emerged among children whose parents were not incarcerated. These findings demonstrate the robustness of children’s positivity and can inform debates regarding contact between incarcerated parents and their children.     

I Remember When You Taught Me That! Preschool Children's Memories of Realistic Learning Episodes

This study examined whether preschool children are able to identify the source of new knowledge that they acquired in a stimulating, interactive learning context. Sixty 4‐ to 5‐year‐old children participated in two staged learning events. Several days later, children were asked questions that assessed their knowledge of factual information presented during the events. Children indicated whether they knew the answer to each question and whether they remembered the moment they learned it (i.e. had an episodic memory of the learning event), and then recalled event details. A majority of preschoolers were able to accurately identify how they had learned at least some factual information, but this ability was not consistent across children and test items. Recall of event‐specific details was positively correlated with correct answers to factual questions. The results indicate that when preschool children are asked to reflect on past learning experiences that occurred in complex and realistic contexts, their source monitoring abilities are evident but not yet fully developed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When Children's Knowledge of Memory Improves Children's Performance in Memory

One of the strongest hypotheses in the field of metacognition research involves the positive effect of metamemory on memory performance. However, owing to the lack of appropriate instruments to appraise knowledge of memory, few studies have examined this effect among children. This study was conducted to create and validate an instrument to assess children's metamemory knowledge and link this knowledge with their memory performance and strategy use. A sample of 166 children was given a new three‐factor metamemory interview, and its psychometric properties were investigated. Regression analyses were carried out to investigate the link between metamemory and memory performance in a subgroup of 128 children from the validation study. Results confirmed the scale's good psychometric properties and revealed its ability to predict children's memory performance. However, none of the scale's factors could predict children's use of memory strategies. Implications for the study of children's metamemory development are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When Another Stumbles: Gender and Self-Presentation to Vulnerable Others

Pursuing answers to the twin questions of whenand why women engage in “modest”self-presentation, this study examined theself-presentation of academic achievement in a collegesetting. Gender of the participants, gender of the partners,and vulnerability (concern over his/her low grades ornot) of the partner were completely crossed.Participants were 85 first-year students, drawn from acollege population that was 6% African-American, 9%Asian, 79% Euro-American, and 5% Latinola. They heardinformation about a partner's academic record, and thenwere induced to predict their own grade point average, in a context in which they anticipatedinteracting closely with the partner on a joint task.Women's grade point average predictions were lower thanmen's, and particularly so when the partner wasvulnerable. Vulnerable male partners were particularlysalient for women in both the grade point averagepredictions and self-report data; the nonvulnerable malepartners were particularly salient for men. Results are discussed with reference toself-in-relation and social comparisontheories.     

Two-Year-Old Children's Understanding of Visual Perception and Knowledge Formation in Others

A landmark study by O'Neill (1996 O'Neill , D. K. ( 1996 ). Two-year-old children's sensitivity to a parent's knowledge state when making requests . Child Development , 67 , 659 – 677 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), in which 2-year-old children were found to be more likely to point toward a hidden object to help an adult who was unsighted during the hiding event than to point helpfully for an adult who had been sighted, seems to undermine the conventional assumption that children this young do not understand the relationship between seeing/not seeing and knowing/not knowing. Concerns remain, however, as to whether the children's success was mentalistic or behavioral. In two experiments, 2-year-old children received first-person experience with two kinds of glasses of different colors but with apparently identical opaque lenses, one of which blocked their vision and the other of which they could see through. When the parent was wearing these glasses, the children were able to use their own first-person experience of the glasses to infer whether the adult could see or not. Despite this, they did not understand the causal relationship between visual perception and knowledge formation, as demonstrated by their indiscriminate pointing behavior in response to an ignorant or a knowledgeable parent. However, in a third experiment, we examined the relationship between experience of the adult's behavioral incompetence when wearing glasses of a certain color and the children's pointing behavior. Here they tended to point appropriately. We conclude that the phenomenon reported by O'Neill (1996 O'Neill , D. K. ( 1996 ). Two-year-old children's sensitivity to a parent's knowledge state when making requests . Child Development , 67 , 659 – 677 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) yields to an account in terms of the 2-year-olds' assumptions about behavioral competence/incompetence rather than about knowledge/ignorance.     

The Relationship Between Understanding of Self and Others in Children's Friendships

This study examined the relationship between Australian children's acceptance of self and their stage of friendship expectations. Subjects, 116 boys and 92 girls (8 to 13 years old), completed the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale and a Picture Sequence Task. The results showed that children who were at the evaluation, admiration, and common activities stages of friendship expectations reported comparatively lower self-acceptance feelings for the global self and for a number of minor self-concept areas than did those who were at higher developmental levels.     

Perspective-dependence and Critical Thinking

Recent theories of critical thinking have stressed the importance of taking into consideration in critical enquiry the perspectives, or presuppositions, of both the speaker whose statements are under scrutiny and the critic himself. The purpose of the paper is to explore this idea from an epistemological (rather than a pedagogical or psychological) point of view. The problem is first placed within the general context of critical thinking theory. Three types of perspective-dependence are then described, and the consequences of each for the possibility of critical discussion discussed. It is concluded that although it is essential in critical discussion to take the other’s perspective into consideration, perspective-dependence does not exclude the possibility of criticism.     

Object‐Label‐Order Effect When Learning From an Inconsistent Source

Learning in natural environments is often characterized by a degree of inconsistency from an input. These inconsistencies occur, for example, when learning from more than one source, or when the presence of environmental noise distorts incoming information; as a result, the task faced by the learner becomes ambiguous. In this study, we investigate how learners handle such situations. We focus on the setting where a learner receives and processes a sequence of utterances to master associations between objects and their labels, where the source is inconsistent by design: It uses both “correct” and “incorrect” object‐label pairings. We hypothesize that depending on the order of presentation, the result of the learning may be different. To this end, we consider two types of symbolic learning procedures: the Object‐Label (OL) and the Label‐Object (LO) process. In the OL process, the learner is first exposed to the object, and then the label. In the LO process, this order is reversed. We perform experiments with human subjects, and also construct a computational model that is based on a nonlinear stochastic reinforcement learning algorithm. It is observed experimentally that OL learners are generally better at processing inconsistent input compared to LO learners. We show that the patterns observed in the learning experiments can be reproduced in the simulations if the model includes (a) an ability to regularize the input (and also to do the opposite, i.e., undermatch) and (b) an ability to take account of implicit negative evidence (i.e., interactions among different objects/labels). The model suggests that while both types of learners utilize implicit negative evidence in a similar way, there is a difference in regularization patterns: OL learners regularize the input, whereas LO learners undermatch. As a result, OL learners are able to form a more consistent system of image‐utterance associations, despite the ambiguous learning task.     

Experimental Studies of Children's Learning

This article compares John Dewey's theory of inquiry with Jean Piaget's analysis of the mechanisms implied in the increase of knowledge. The sources for this paper are Dewey's studies on logic and the theory of inquiry and Piaget's historical-critical and psychogenetic investigations. Three major conclusions result from the comparison: first, there are significant convergences between the two theories; second, Piaget's developmental analysis makes explicit what is programmatic in Dewey's investigations; and, finally, Piaget is incorrect in characterizing Dewey's pragmatism as a method that does not meet the criteria of intelligent activity.     

Preschool Children's Multimodal Word Learning

Two studies used a new paradigm to examine preschool children's (i.e., 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) word learning across multiple sense modalities. In Study 1 (n = 60), children heard a word for an object that they touched but did not see, while word learning was examined using objects that were seen but not touched. In Study 2 (n = 60), children heard a word for an object that they saw but did not touch, while word learning was examined using objects that were touched but not seen. Findings from both studies revealed that children were able to learn words by coordinating information across multiple sense modalities and that word learning improved with age. These findings are discussed in terms of E. J. Gibson's differentiation theory (1969 Gibson , E. J. ( 1969 ). Principles of perceptual learning and development . Englewood Cliffs , NJ : Prentice Hall . [Google Scholar], 1988 Gibson , E. J. ( 1988 ). Exploratory behavior in the development of perceiving, acting, and the acquiring of knowledge . Annual Review of Psychology , 39 , 1 – 41 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]).