Holistic processing of faces in preschool children and adults

Contrary to the encoding-switch hypothesis, recent research demonstrates that 6-year-olds do not rely solely on parts-based encoding to recognize upright faces. This research shows better recognition of face parts presented in the whole face than in isolation, indicating use of holistic encoding. The present study examined whether children younger than 6 years also recognize faces holistically. Four-year-olds, 5-year-olds, and adults were administered a part-whole face recognition task. Children below the age of 6 remembered parts from upright faces better when tested in the whole-face context than in isolation. This whole-face advantage did not occur when faces were inverted. Although children showed a smaller inversion decrement than adults and generally performed more poorly than adults, the different age groups showed similar patterns of performance, indicating that young preschoolers, like older children and adults, are able to recognize faces holistically.     

Rapid discrimination of visual patterns in children and adults

Rapid visual discrimination in children (9 to 11 yr.) and adults was investigated using two tasks in which the subject had to search for a target pattern embedded in 35 background patterns. The time available for inspecting the search arrays was altered by varying the stimulus duration. In one task, there was a large difference in the feature or 'texton' content of patterns between the target and the background; in the other, this difference was small. In the first task, the children could detect the target pattern in a briefly flashed search array with high accuracy, because the target 'popped out' perceptually from the array, but in the second task the same detection rate was not reached until the stimulus duration was much longer, since a serial searching strategy was required. Results achieved by children and adults were similar. It seems that serial visual search is as efficient in children as in adults.     

Perceived tachistoscopic duration and early visual processing in preschool children and adults

Two experiments further explored the Avant et al. (1975) finding that stimulus familiarity influences prerecognition processing to generate differences in the apparent duration of tachistoscopic flashes. The first experiment tested for developmental differences in the effects of upright versus 90°, 180°, and 270° rotations of a single letter or number upon the apparent duration of pre- and postmasked 30- and 50-msec flashes with adults and 4- and 5-year-old children. All age groups judged upright presentations to be of briefer duration. These differences in apparent duration were interpreted to index the automaticity of contacts between stimulus inputs and their memory representations. Failure of the children to recognize the letter and number in any orientation indicates that contact between stimulus inputs and memory representations precedes allocation of attention to the presented stimulus. The second experiment explored the influence of spatial structures which are not coded verbally by testing effects of good and poor dot pattern Gestalts on the apparent duration of tachistoscopic flashes. Adults discriminated between apparent durations of good and poor Gestalts but 4- and 5-year-olds did not. Apparent duration differences in the two experiments showed that spatial pattern structure and familiarity with verbal stimuli influence early visual processing in different ways.     

Quantified statements are recalled as generics: evidence from preschool children and adults

Generics are sentences such as "ravens are black" and "tigers are striped", which express generalizations concerning kinds. Quantified statements such as "all tigers are striped" or "most ravens are black" also express generalizations, but unlike generics, they specify how many members of the kind have the property in question. Recently, some theorists have proposed that generics express cognitively fundamental/default generalizations, and that quantified statements in contrast express cognitively more sophisticated generalizations (Gelman, 2010; Leslie, 2008). If this hypothesis is correct, then quantified statements may be remembered as generics. This paper presents four studies with 136 preschool children and 118 adults, demonstrating that adults and preschoolers alike tend to recall quantified statements as generics, thus supporting the hypothesis that generics express cognitively default generalizations.     

Dyadic versus individual storytelling by preschool children

A constructive model of recall and communication (D. Edwards & D. Middleton, 1986) and certain whole-word approaches to learning (C. Pontecorvo & C. Zucchermaglio, 1989) were evaluated in conjunction with an investigation of the benefits of joint storytelling on children's cognitive processes. Preschoolers (N = 36, aged 30-62 months) were prompted to compose a story, working with a classmate (during which they talked together freely and generated a mutual narrative) or individually. Findings revealed that, although dyadically generated stories were longer, containing significantly more words, propositions, and additive conjunctions, stories told by individuals contained proportionally more logically connected statements and greater use of the past tense. Moreover, compared with dyadic stories, individually generated narratives contained fewer alterations of the protagonist.     

Training generalized improvisation of tools by preschool children

The development of new, "creative" behaviors was examined in a problem-solving context. One form of problem solving, improvisation, was defined as finding a substitute to replace the specifically designated, but currently unavailable, tool ordinarily used to solve the problem. The study examined whether preschool children spontaneously displayed generalized improvisation skills, and if not, whether they could be trained to do so within different classes of tools. Generalization across different tool classes was monitored but not specifically trained. Five preschool children participated in individual sessions that first probed their skill at improvising tools, and later trained and probed generalized improvisation in one or more of three tool classes (Hammers, Containers, and Shoelaces), using a multiple-baseline design. All five children were trained with Hammers, two were trained in two classes, and two were trained in all three tool classes. Four of the five children improvised little in Baseline. During Training, all five showed increased generalized improvisation within the trained class, but none across classes. Tools fabricated by item combinations were rare in Baseline, but common in Training. Followup probes showed that the training effects were durable.     

Identification of letterlike distortions by preschool children.

In two experiments preschool children chose one of two test forms that looked like previously exposed distortions of a letterlike-form. In Exp. I a distance metric was defined to measure the physical discrepancy between forms. It was found that the distance relationship between distortions and particular test forms did not designate the children's choice behavior. In Exp. II the children were able to choose previously exposed distortions when particular test forms contained novel features. The results are related to distinctive feature and prototype hypotheses to account for children's performance in recognizing forms.     

Levels in the identifying of orientation by preschool children

A new approach to understanding the perception of orientation proposes that the first level in the processing of orientation information results in perceiving whether a shape is upright or nonupright; nonupright orientations are not distinguished from each other. As predicted, children of 3 and 4 years discriminated upright from nonupright pictures more readily than they discriminated the nonuprights (upside down and sideways) from each other. The angular differences between the pairs of discriminanda (whether 90 or 180°) had no effect on performance. the difficulty of distinguishing between nonuprights could not be attributed simply to a lack of attention to the dimension of orientation. The theory appears to have considerable generality, and provides a basis for understanding (1) perception of the orientation of both realistic and geometric shapes, and (2) similarities in orientation perception observed between children and adults.     

Reconstruction of arbitrary versus logical sequences by preschool children

The ability of preschool children to construct and reconstruct ordered sequences was examined in a series of four experiments. In Expt. 1, the task was to copy, with the model present or absent, the order of items pegged on a clothesline. In Expts. 2–4, the subjects were required to reconstruct ordered series of pictures from memory. In all experiments, the orders were either logical or arbitrary. Reconstruction of an arbitrary series of events is within the problem solving capacity of 4-yr-old children if (a) reconstruction takes place in the presence of the model or follows immediately upon the removal of the model and (b) the original sequence is presented simultaneously. If, however, the lag between viewing and reconstruction is increased and/or the original set is not viewed simultaneously, as a unit, performance declines. The provision of an inherent order to the items within a set, either by introducing a connective narrative, or a depicted logical sequence, is sufficient to maintain that order over time and to provide a unifying cohesion to the items when viewed successively.     

False recognition of static and dynamic object properties by preschool children

A false recognition task was used to compare preschool children's use of static and dynamic properties of objects in semantic processing. Four, five, and six year old children heard a list of object names, and then were tested for recognition of these words with a recognition test list that included distractor words that were static or dynamic properties of the objects on the first list. False recognition scores of dynamic properties were higher than those for static, for 4 and 5 year old children, with no differences for 6 year old children. The results argue for a functional basis for the encoding of referential terms in memory, and are discussed in terms of two models of semantic development.This research was partially supported by Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Research Service Award HD 07066 and U.S. Public Health Service Grant HD 00870 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the Kansas Center for Mental Retardation and Human Development.     

Imaginary companions of preschool children

The developmental significance of preschool children's imaginary companions was examined. Mothers of 78 children were interviewed about their children's social environments and imaginary companions (if their children had them). Results revealed differences between invisible companions and personified objects (e.g., stuffed animals or dolls) in terms of the pretend friends' stability and ubiquity, identity, and relationship with the child. Relationships with invisible companions were mostly described as sociable and friendly, whereas personified objects were usually nurtured. Mothers reported that personification of objects frequently occurred as a result of acquiring a toy, whereas invisible friends were often viewed as fulfilling a need for a relationship. Compared to children without imaginary companions, children with imaginary companions were more likely to be firstborn and only children.     

Test sample selection by preschool children: Honoring diversity

In a test of an inductive inference, preschool children's selection of objects was examined. In Experiment 1, 4-year-olds selected diverse objects first in sequential selections; in Experiment 2, adults and 4-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, made similar selections under the same conditions. A defective object led subjects in all age groups to test a similar object. In Experiment 3, 4-year-olds chose to test a pair of dissimilar objects rather than a pair of similar objects, but 3-year-olds did not. Three-year-olds' selections were independent of diversity. In Experiment 4, we attempted to emphasize the diversity of objects for 3-year-olds. Their first task was to select an object that was the same as or different from a target object. The subjects responded correctly in this task but did not prefer to test diverse objects. Experiment 5 showed that neither 3- nor 4-year-olds have a bias to select nondiverse objects in a nontest context. The findings indicate that children as young as 4 years old value diverse evidence in induction.     

Spatial cognition: gathering strategies used by preschool children

How preschool children retrieve hidden objects was examined in two cross-sectional studies. The first was a simple task in which 1- and 3-year-olds saw two treats hidden in their living room. The newly walking infants generally sought the closer treat first, providing evidence for a least-distance spatial strategy. However, this strategy was affected by a tendency to approach the hiding place most recently baited. Three-year-old children used a least-distance strategy regardless of the order of hidings. In Experiment 2, 3- and 5-year-olds saw 12 puzzle pieces hidden in various containers equally spaced within a naturally furnished children's laboratory. Factors in addition to age were the distinctiveness of the containers and a requirement to return to the center of the array after each retrieval. Overall, children of both age groups were quite successful at this task, retrieving 11 of the pieces. However, 3-year-olds were less efficient, retrieving fewer pieces and requiring more searches. Detailed analyses of errors and patterns of choices indicated differential processes in achieving their performance. Three-year-old children showed the use of memories for events, discrimination of classes of hiding places, and efficient spatial biases. Five-year-old children were more likely to exhibit these processes concurrently.     

Comprehension of televised stories by preschool children with ADHD.

Investigated visual attention to and story comprehension of televised stories in 4- to 6-year-old children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and comparison children. Half of the children in each group watched the program with toys in the room, and the other half watched without toys. Visual attention to the television was recorded, and story comprehension was assessed by performance on cued recall questions. All children attended significantly less when toys were present, but the difference when toys were present was greater for children with ADHD. The groups did not differ on recall of factual information when toys were absent. When toys were present, the comparison children showed no decrement in performance on factual questions, whereas the performance of children with ADHD was significantly worse. On questions testing causal connections, the children with ADHD performed more poorly than comparison children regardless of whether toys were present. Implications of these results for understanding and treating the academic and social difficulties of children with ADHD are discussed.