Dynamic categorization and slot-filler representation in 4- and 6-year-old children

This experiment was aimed at studying both the role of narrow/contextualized categories in the acquisition/organization of conceptual knowledge and the dynamics of categorization decisions. A forced-choice categorization task contrasting thematic and taxonomic responding was used in 4- and 6-year-old children. Before response alternatives were presented, a conceptual organization was pre-activated by means of a matching between the target stimulus and a thematically related, taxonomically related or slot-filler related object. Although taxonomic sorting was prominent overall, it varied as a function of age and of the nature of the pre-activated relation. Responses in accordance with the thematic or taxonomic activations occurred similarly in 4- and 6-year-old children. Age-related effects were however at work in the case of a slot-filler activation: 4-year-old children considered the contextual/contiguity relations between the stimuli but did not weight the equivalence relations (i.e., same occurrence of responses based on the kind of object in the slot-filler and in the thematic activation conditions). More diversified processes appeared to be at work in 6-year-old children. Slot-filler categories were this time considered throughout both their contextual/contiguity structure and their equivalence relations. Results were discussed in terms of availability of conceptual organizations, flexibility abilities, dynamic categorization and preferences. The focus was on implication of slot-filler representations in the construction of conceptual knowledge and in the development of categorization. An important point was to determine whether the age-related changes observed in the slot-filler activation condition could be consistent with Nelson's ( 1983 ) idea that slot-fillers would help passing from a schema-based to a conventional superordinate organization.     

The spacing effect in 4- to 9-year-old children

Experiment 1 of the current research failed to replicate Toppino and Di George’s (1984) finding that older children but not preschoolers showed a spacing effect. Instead, we obtained the spacing effect in all the age groups tested (preschool, kindergarten, first-grade, and third-grade children). The effect was demonstrated with two types of material, words and pictures. Experiment 2 focused on the role that very brief spacings, with no intervening items between repetitions, play in later retention. Age groups and materials were the same as in Experiment 1. Four different levels of spacing were included (0-, 1.1-,2.5-, and 5-sec intervals). The spacing effect was again obtained for all age groups with both words and pictures. The results of both experiments suggest that the spacing effect does not emerge with development.     

Weight attitudes in 3- to 5-year-old children: Age differences and cross-sectional predictors

We examined weight attitudes in 118 3- to 5-year-old girls and boys. Children completed an interview in which they were asked to select a figure to represent a child with positive or negative characteristics from an array of figures varying from very thin to large, and also a figure representing their own perceived size. Mothers’ body dissatisfaction, internalization of the thin ideal and dieting were assessed. Children chose larger figures to represent negative compared to positive characteristics. The figure size selected for negative characteristics was significantly greater in 5- than 3-year-olds but there was no age variation in figure size selected for positive characteristics. Children's own perceived body size positively predicted the figure size selected for positive characteristics. Maternal body image attitudes predicted figure size selection for both positive and negative characteristics. Findings suggest children's social environments are important in the development of negative and positive weight attitudes.     

Fantasy play in 5- and 6-year-old children

We studied the verbal pretend play of 5- and 6-year-old boys and girls to delineate age and sex differences during the later preoperational period. Sixteen children with average language ability were paired by age and sex and were videotaped for three 15-min intervals. Verbal interactions were transcribed, and the pretend play was classified as object fantasy, imaginative action plans/themes, or fantasy roles. Language used for pretend play increased in proportion to all utterances with age. Older children referred to more invented objects than younger ones but primarily in the service of realistic action formats. Girls' conversations were scored as having significantly more verbal pretending than boys' and a higher proportion of it referred to play roles. There were both age and sex differences in the types of themes, toys used, and roles enacted, including more sex-typed behavior in older children. The continued increase in the proportion of pretend play to all verbal interaction with age and the characteristics of play behavior is consistent with developmental theory.     

中国4-6岁儿童口语句法启动效应的实验研究

句法启动是指人们倾向于重复使用刚刚加工过的句子类型和结构.本研究运用图画描述范式通过三个实验考察中国4-6岁儿童口语中的句法启动效应.结果显示句法启动现象也存在于中文口语中,同时发现中文特殊句法中有明湿句法指示功能词"把"的词法启动效应.     

4～6岁儿童对以计算机为核心的信息技术的概念表征

以概念图为研究工具考察了4~6岁儿童对以计算机为核心的信息技术的概念表征。结果表明:4~6岁儿童对计算机的结构与功能已有初步认识。这种认识直接源于与周围学习环境(包括幼儿园、家庭、社会)的相互作用,并表现出一定的年龄差异及性别偏好。研究还依据现象图式学对概念图的内容进行了探讨。     

A longitudinal analysis of the attention networks in 6- to 11-year-old children

Attention is critical for everyday functioning. Posner and Petersen’s model of attention describes three neural networks involved in attention control—the alerting network for arousal, the orienting network for selecting sensory input and reorienting attention, and the executive network for the regulatory control of attention. No longitudinal research has examined relative change in these networks in children. A modified version of the attention network task (ANT) was used to examine changes in the three attention networks, three times over 12 months, in 114 6-, 8- and 10-year-olds. Findings showed that the alerting network continued to develop over this period, the orienting network had stabilized by 6 years, and the conflict network had largely stabilized by 7 years. The reorienting of attention was also assessed using invalid cues, which showed a similar developmental trajectory to the orienting attention network and had stabilized by 6 years. The results confirm that age 6 to 7 years is a critical period in the development of attention, in particular executive attention. The largest improvement over the evaluation period was between 6 and 7 years; however, subtle changes were found in attention beyond 8 years of age.     

Gender attribution and gender agreement in 4- to 10-year-old French children

Grammatical gender is generally considered an early and error-free acquisition in French children. This article first examines how children cope with the gender attribution problem, i.e., how they determine the gender of individual nouns. We consider the plausibility and requirements of an account in which tacit phonological assignment rules are put to use to solve attribution problems and contrast it with a simple “masculine as default” strategy. Elicited production data from three experiments, involving 312 4–10-year-old French children and 40 adult controls, were found compatible with this latter scenario and to provide only scant support for the former one. Second, we argue that previous studies have overestimated French children's gender agreement abilities, and that French children's ability to make the article and the adjective agree can be assumed from age 7 onwards, but not before.     

Visual control of manual aiming movements in 6- to 10-year-old children and adults

Recent results indicate that adults modulate their initial movement impulse toward a stationary visual target by processing visual afferent information. The authors investigated whether the mechanisms responsible for those modulations are already in place in young children or develop as the children grow older. Adults (n = 10) and 6-, 8- and 10-year-old children (ns = 6, 7, and 7, respectively) performed a video-aiming task while vision of the cursor they were moving was (acquisition) or was not (transfer) visible. The results indicated that within-participant variability of the initial impulse trajectory of the children's aiming movement leveled-off in acquisition between peak extent deceleration and the end of the initial impulse, whereas it increased linearly as movement unfolded in transfer. The results also indicated that children modulate their initial movement impulse when visual afferent information is available, although to a lesser extent than adults do, and strongly imply that contrary to past suggestions, the initial impulse of an aiming movement is not ballistic.     

Resolving power of the perceptual- and sensorimotor systems in 6- to 10-year-old children

Children aged 6 to 10 were tested on their ability to move accurately and to perceptually evaluate their motor response. Subjects performed a directional and an amplitude visuo-manual aiming task without vision of their moving limb. They were asked to correct their error, after completion of their movements, only if they felt they were not accurate. Terminal aiming errors and correction responses (adjustments) were analyzed, and threshold detection was determined relative to terminal aiming error. Action accuracy and evaluation of action accuracy are two abilities that do not develop synchronously. Moreover, the relationship between these abilities depends on whether accuracy and direction or amplitude are required. Amplitude undergoes more corrections than direction, suggesting that the spatial system of reference involved depends more upon the coding of the final position than on direction. Two spatial comparators, operating on the basis of two types of evaluation, seem to have a variably distinct contribution to movement and perception accuracy, according to age.     

Evidence of deontic reasoning in 3- and 4-year-old children

Deontic reasoning is reasoning about what one may, ought, or ought not do in a given set of circumstances. Virtually all of our social institutions and child-rearing practices presume the capacity to reason about deontic concepts, such as what is permitted, obligated, or prohibited. Despite this, very little is known about the development of deontic reasoning. Two experiments were conducted that contrasted children’s reasoning performance on deontic and indicative reasoning tasks (i.e., the reduced array selection version of the Wason card selection task). Like adults, children as young as 3 years of age were found to adopt a violation-detecting strategy more often when reasoning about the deontic case than when reasoning about the indicative case. These results indicate that violation detection emerges as an effective deontic reasoning very early in human development.     

The relation between measures of cognitive and motor functioning in 5- to 6-year-old children

Specific relations between executive functions (working memory capacity, planning and problem-solving, inhibitory control) and motor skill performance (anticipatory motor planning, manual dexterity) were examined in 5- to 6-year-old children (N = 40). Results showed that the two motor skill components were not correlated. Additionally, it was found that response planning performance was a significant predictor of anticipatory motor planning performance, whereas inhibitory control and working memory capacity measures were significant predictors of manual dexterity scores. Taken together, these results suggest that cognitive and motor skills are linked, but that manual dexterity and anticipatory motor planning involve different specialized skills. The current study provides support for specific relations between cognitive and motor performance, which has implications for early childhood cognitive-motor training and intervention programs.     

Temporal generalization in 3- to 8-year-old children

Children aged 3, 5, and 8 years were tested on temporal generalization with visual stimuli. Different groups received 4- and 8-s standards. Gradients at all ages superimposed when plotted on the same relative scale, indicating underlying scalar timing. The principal developmental changes were (i) increasing sharpness of the generalization gradient with increasing age and (ii) a change from symmetrical (3 and 5 years) to adultlike asymmetrical generalization gradients in the oldest children. Theoretical modeling attributed these changes to increasing precision of the reference memory of the standard with increasing age, as well as a decreased tendency to "misremember" the standard as being shorter than it actually was, as the children developed.     

Blocking is sensitive to causal structure in 4-year-old and 8-year-old children

In a contingency learning task, 4-year-old and 8-year-old children had to predict the outcome displayed on the back of a card on the basis of cues presented on the front. The task was embedded in either a causal or a merely predictive scenario. Within this task, either a forward blocking or a backward blocking procedure was implemented. Blocking occurred in the causal but not in the predictive scenario. Moreover, blocking was affected by the scenario to the same extent in both age groups. The pattern of results was similar for forward and backward blocking. These results suggest that even young children are sensitive to the causal structure of a contingency learning task and that the occurrence of blocking in such a task defies an explanation in terms of associative learning theory.     

Asymmetric recognition of pictures of cats as a function of age in 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children

In the present study it was investigated whether children recognized deletions more accurately than additions in pictures of animate objects as a function of age between 4 and 6 years. Children, presented pictures of cats with features added to or deleted from the original pictures, judged whether the pictures were the same or different as those in a test of recognition. Analysis showed both 5-yr.-olds and 6-yr.olds discovered deletions more accurately than additions. This asymmetric effect is in accord with that of adults, with whom the same stimuli were used in earlier research, but are contrary to previous studies in which additions were recognized more accurately than deletions when inanimate objects were stimuli. Asymmetric effects, that is, greater recognition accuracy for deletions may be related to children's being uncomfortable about modified pictures of animals.     

Temporal learning in 4 1/2- and 6-year-old children: role of instructions and prior knowledge

The present study investigates effects of different types of instructions (high-rate, interval, and minimal) during training with a fixed-interval schedule as a function of prior acquired temporal knowledge. A pretest was used to assess 4 1/2- and 6-year-old children's ability to understand the temporal parameters of a fixed-interval schedule of reinforcement. The results as a whole show that the control exerted by instructions given by the experimenter or elaborated by the subjects themselves on fixed-interval performance of young children depends on the interaction of two factors: development of verbal self-control skills and mastery of knowledge required by the rules forming the instructions.     

4～8岁儿童视动整合能力发展及其与学业成绩关系的研究

视动整合能力指个体在有目的的操作活动过程中视觉感知和手部运动的协调与配合能力,在儿童操作活动中具有重要作用.本研究考察了4-8岁儿童视动整合能力的发展水平及其与学业成绩的关系,结果发现:(1)随着年龄的增长,儿童视动整合能力表现出明显的上升趋势,在6-7岁之间发展速度较快;(2)视动整合能力与儿童学业成绩间的相关显著,差异检验表明,学习成绩好的儿童视动整合能力显著高于学习成绩差的儿童.     

2~4岁普通话儿童前注意阶段的声调感知机制

以MMN、p-MMR作为汉语词汇声调感知的神经关联物,探究2~4岁汉语普通话儿童前注意阶段对声调刺激的失匹配响应,关注范畴信息和偏差大小两个因素对儿童感知水平的影响。结果显示:在范畴间大偏差条件下(T1/T3),诱发明显的MMN;在范畴内或小偏差条件下(T3a/T3、T3b/T3、T2/T3),都未诱发显著的MMR。表明:2~4岁普通话儿童正处于声调感知能力的发展过程中,音位信息和声学信息共同影响其声调感知。     

Development of forward models for hand localization and movement control in 6- to 10-year-old children

An active kinesthetic-to-visual matching task was performed by 15 children aged 5-10 years and five young adults. The task required the participants to locate the target visually while performing center-out drawing movements to the located visual targets in the absence of visual feedback of hand/pen motion. Movement time (MT), terminal end-point position error (EPE), and initial directional error (IDE) were measured. The general finding is that the end-point error variability, representing the joint localization probability distributions for proprioceptive localization of the hand and visual localization of the target, was largest for the youngest children, but did not differ from one another for the older age groups. The localization distributions, as characterized by principal component analysis, showed that both errors in extent and direction were significantly larger in the youngest children. These error distributions could not be accounted for by initial localization errors prior to movement onset in the children. It is likely that at least some portion of the increased movement variability seen during sensorimotor development in young children can be attributed not only to immature control mechanisms per se, but also to partial, not yet stable, forward representations for hand localization which are used for movement perception, planning, and control.     

Theory of mind skills 1 year after traumatic brain injury in 6- to 8-year-old children

This study examined the longer-term effects of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on theory of mind (ToM) skills of children who were between the ages of 5 and 7 years at the time of injury. Fifty-two children with orthopaedic injury, 30 children with moderate TBI, and 12 children with severe TBI were evaluated approximately 1 year post-injury (mean age=6.98 years, SD=0.59, range=6.02–8.26). Children with severe TBI did not engage in representation of first- and second-order mental states at a developmental level comparable to their peers, suggesting stagnation or lack of development, as well as regression of putatively existing ToM skills. Age, task-specific cognitive demands, and verbal abilities were strong predictors of ToM performance. However, even after taking those factors into account, children with severe TBI had poorer ToM performance than children with orthopaedic injuries.