Early sex differences in spatial skill.

This study investigated sex differences in young children's spatial skill. The authors developed a spatial transformation task, which showed a substantial male advantage by age 4 years 6 months. The size of this advantage was no more robust for rotation items than for translation items. This finding contrasts with studies of older children and adults, which report that sex differences are largest on mental rotation tasks. Comparable performance of boys and girls on a vocabulary task indicated that the male advantage on the spatial task was not attributable to an overall intellectual advantage of boys in the sample.     

Where science starts: spontaneous experiments in preschoolers' exploratory play

Probabilistic models of expected information gain require integrating prior knowledge about causal hypotheses with knowledge about possible actions that might generate data relevant to those hypotheses. Here we looked at whether preschoolers (mean: 54 months) recognize “action possibilities” (affordances) in the environment that allow them to isolate variables when there is information to be gained. By manipulating the physical properties of the stimuli, we were able to affect the degree to which candidate variables could be isolated; by manipulating the base rate of candidate causes, we were able to affect the potential for information gain. Children’s exploratory play was sensitive to both manipulations: given unambiguous evidence children played indiscriminately and rarely tried to isolate candidate causes; given ambiguous evidence, children both selected (Experiment 1) and designed (Experiment 2) informative interventions.     

The impact of spatial cues on preschoolers' selective attention

The effects of spatial arrangement on preschool children's ability to selectively attend were investigated. Three- and 4-year old children were shown a multicolor dollhouse room intended to serve as a special place containing miniature chairs and models of animals. One category of objects was designated as relevant and 1 as irrelevant. Relevant items were placed in each of the apparatus's corners or in the middle of its walls. Children in the corners condition correctly relocated more relevant items than children in the wall or control conditions. The findings suggest that for both age groups, the ability to recall relevant items may be independent of their ability to demonstrate a selective attention strategy.     

Knowing that I didn't know: preschoolers' understanding of their own false belief is a predictor of assents to fictitious events

The present study examines the relation between children's theory of mind abilities and their tendency to assent to fictitious events when questioned repeatedly across interviews. Children between the ages of 3 and 6 years were interviewed individually either four or seven times about a fictitious and a real staged event, and in addition given a false belief test as well as a fantasy‐reality distinction test. Children's performance on the false belief task addressing the understanding of their own false belief was a better predictor for assents to false events than was understanding the false belief of another person, age, number of interviews and performance on a fantasy‐reality distinction task. Children's memory for a staged event showed that repeated questions across interviews was related to a decrease in correct assents to having experienced a staged event, an increase in wrong yes‐responses about touch and erroneously mentioning names of children who had not been present during the staged event. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Phoneme awareness is a better predictor of early reading skill than onset-rime awareness

We present the results of a short-term longitudinal study. Children in the early stages of learning to read (5 and 6 year olds) were administered three different tasks (deletion, oddity, and detection) tapping awareness of four phonological units (initial phoneme, final phoneme, onset, and rime). Measures of phoneme awareness were the best concurrent and longitudinal predictors of reading skill with onset-rime skills making no additional predictive contribution once phonemic skills were accounted for. The findings are related to recent controversy over the role of large versus small phonological units as predictors of children's reading skills.     

Learning a spatial skill for surgery: how the contributions of abilities change with practice

We examined changes in performance as people learned to use an angled laparoscope, a challenging spatial skill that must be mastered by surgeons who perform minimally invasive techniques. In Experiment 1, novices took tests of spatial and general reasoning ability, and then learned to operate an angled laparoscope, simulated in a virtual environment, over 12 learning sessions. Initial performance showed considerable variability among learners, with performance related to general and spatial abilities. As learning progressed, interindividual variability diminished and all learners attained proficiency; the correlation with general ability diminished but the correlation with spatial ability remained significant. In Experiment 2, performance by highly experienced surgeons on the simulation was excellent from the first session, confirming its ecological validity. The findings contribute to theories of skill acquisition. They also have practical implications for the selection of surgeons and for the potential use of virtual environments in surgical training. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An investigation into the validity of role play as a procedure for counsellor skill assessment

The aim of this study was to determine the validity of role play as a method for assessing counsellor skill. Video recordings of twelve counsellors' performance in both real and simulated counselling interactions were analysed. Skill assessment included molar ratings of eight skill areas and molecular measures of 28 behaviours. A comparison of counsellor performance between conditions indicated that there was little difference between the real and role-play situations. It is concluded that the modified extended role-play format employed in the present study might be a valid technique for assessment of counselling skills.     

Effects of stress and retesting on role play tests of social skill

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of stress in performance on role play tests of social skill. Chronic psychiatric patients were tested in a formal videotape studio or in an informal consulting room setting. Motoric and physiological measures were secured. In addition, one-half of the subjects were retested one week later. In contrast to previous studies, results indicated that the assessment was not stressful. The two groups were not different on any measure, and the mean heart rates ranged from only 80 to 84 b.p.m. The effects of retesting were difficult to interpret. There were reductions in motoric indices of anxiety (speech disruptions) but not on physiological indices. Overall, testretest reliability was quite high. The results raise several questions which affect interpretation of many social skills studies in the literature.     

Searching in the sand: Protracted video deficit in U.S. preschoolers' spatial recall using a continuous search space

Young children exhibit a video deficit for spatial recall, learning less from on-screen than in-person demonstrations. Some theoretical accounts emphasize memory constraints (e.g., insufficient retrieval cues, competition between memory representations). Such accounts imply memory representations are graded, yet video deficit studies measuring spatial recall operationalize memory retrieval as dichotomous (success or failure). The current study tested a graded-representation account using a spatial recall task with a continuous search space (i.e., sandbox) rather than discrete locations. With this more sensitive task, a protracted video deficit for spatial recall was found in children 4–5 years old (n = 51). This may be due to weaker memory representations in the screen condition, evidenced by higher variability and greater perseverative bias. In general, perseverative bias decreased with repeated trials. The discussion considers how the results support a graded-representation account, potentially explaining why children might exhibit a video deficit in some tasks but not others.

Research Highlights

• The task used a continuous search space (sandbox), making it more difficult and sensitive than spatial recall tasks used in prior video deficit research.
• Spatial recall among 4- and 5-year-old children was more variable after watching hiding events on screen via live video feed than through a window.
• Children's spatial recall from screens was more susceptible to proactive interference, evidenced by more perseverative bias in an A-not-B design.
• The results demonstrate memory representations blend experiences that accumulate over time and explain why the video deficit may be protracted for more difficult tasks.

     

Imagined spatial transformation of one's body

This study examined two related phenomena: (a) the judgment of whether a human body part belongs to the left or right half of the body and (b) the imagined spatial transformation of one's body. In three experiments, observers made left-right judgments of a part of a body whose orientation differed from their own by a rotation about one of 13 axes. To do so, they imagined themselves passing to the orientation of the stimulus. Time for (a) left-right judgments and (b) accompanying imagined spatial transformations depended on the extent of the orientation difference (OD) between the observer and stimulus. More important, time for phenomena (a) and (b) depended strongly, and in the same way, on the direction of OD. Further results showed that the rate of imagined spatial transformations can vary strongly for different axes and directions of rotation about an axis. These and other results (e.g., Parsons, 1987a) suggest that temporal and kinematic properties of imagined spatial transformations are more object-specific than could be previously assumed.     

Early school competence: the roles of sex-segregated play and effortful control

The purpose of this research was to examine the role that young children's same-sex peer interactions play in influencing early school competence. The authors also examined the degree to which effortful control (EC) moderated these relations. The same-sex play preferences of 98 young children (50 boys and 48 girls; mean age = 54.77 months) were observed during the fall semester. At the end of the fall semester, one set of teachers reported on children's EC, and at the end of the following springsemester, another set reported on children's school competence (social, academic, and perceptual-motor). Results revealed that EC moderated the relations of children's same-sex play to their school competence. These patterns differed for boys and girls such that same-sex play was positively related to school outcomes for boys high in EC and for girls low in EC.     

Early intervention for female sexual identity disturbance: Self-monitoring of play behavior

This study is the first experimental demonstration of sex-typed play behavior change in a young girl with sexual identity disturbance. The 8-year-old child was treated with a self-monitoring procedure combined with a behavioral prompting technique that was gradually faded out. Self-monitoring in the clinic resulted in a high, stable rate of appropriate sex-typed play, and this effect generalized to a different set of sex-typed toys over time. The treatment effects did not generalize to the home environment. The self-regulation intervention was subsequently adapted to the home setting, resulting in a replication of the treatment effects across settings. After the removal of the self-monitoring interventions, a high level of feminine sex-typed play persisted. Pretreatment, posttreatment, and follow-up psychological testing demonstrated a reversal of a pronounced cross-gender identity to a normal female sexual identity.This study was supported by United States Public Health Service research grant MH29945 awarded to Dr. Rekers at the Logos Research Institute, Inc., by the National Institute of Mental Health. Appreciation is expressed to Dr. Vernon Van de Riet for his independent clinical psychological diagnosis.     

The effects of spatial configuration on preschoolers' attention strategies,selective attention,and incidental learning

This study investigated the effects of spatial arrangement on preschool children's selective attention and incidental learning. Three‐ and four‐year old children were shown a multi‐coloured box designated as a ‘special place’ containing miniature chairs and models of animals. One category of objects were designated as relevant and one as irrelevant. Relevant items were placed in each of the apparatus' corners, in the middle of its walls, or in two corners and in the middle of two walls. Findings revealed that children shown relevant items in corners demonstrated the greatest number of correct relocations for relevant items while those shown relevant items in the middle of the walls showed the greatest number of correct relocations for irrelevant items. Findings also suggest that for both age groups, the ability to recall relevant items may have been independent of their ability to demonstrate a selective attention strategy. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.