Young Children's Reports of When Events Occurred: Do Event Type and Assessment Method Matter?

Studying young children's reporting about when various events occurred informs about the development of episodic memory and metacognition. In two experiments, 55 3‐ to 5‐year‐old children participated in two activity sessions, a week apart. During the activity sessions, they learned novel animal facts and body movements, and they coloured animal pictures and posed for body movement photos. Immediately after the second activity session, children were interviewed about when they experienced the various events. Overall, children were as accurate about learning events as physical events, but they were more accurate when asked temporal distance (e.g. ‘Which did you learn a longer time ago, “X” or “Y”?’) than temporal location questions (e.g. ‘Which did you learn before today, “X” or “Y”?’). The results suggest that young children's apparent difficulty recognizing new learning is not due to a rapid ‘remember‐to‐know shift’. Rather, the way we ask young children about when they experienced various events determines their accuracy. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Young children’s talk about learning events

In order to understand children’s conception of knowledge acquisition better, everyday uses of the terms “learn” and “teach” were examined. Longitudinal data obtained from CHILDES (MacWhinney & Snow, 1990) included 329 target term uses and related references by children (N=5, aged 2;4–7;3) and 431 by adults talking with them. Each reference was coded for mention of what was learned, when, how, and where learning occurred, who learned, and who taught/told, among other topics. Children and adults referred most frequently to what was learned and who learned/taught, and less frequently to when, how, and where learning occurred, a pattern that did not change as children aged. Consistent with earlier experimental reports, children talked mostly about their own learning, rarely mentioning sources of knowledge besides other people (e.g., teachers). Behavior learning was mentioned more than fact learning. Implications for characterizations of children’s developing conceptions of knowledge acquisition, for past and future experimental research, and for education were discussed.     

Additivity pretraining and cue competition effects: developmental evidence for a reasoning-based account of causal learning

The effect of additivity pretraining on blocking has been taken as evidence for a reasoning account of human and animal causal learning. If inferential reasoning underpins this effect, then developmental differences in the magnitude of this effect in children would be expected. Experiment 1 examined cue competition effects in children's (4- to 5-year-olds and 6- to 7-year-olds) causal learning using a new paradigm analogous to the food allergy task used in studies of human adult causal learning. Blocking was stronger in the older than the younger children, and additivity pretraining only affected blocking in the older group. Unovershadowing was not affected by age or by pretraining. In experiment 2, levels of blocking were found to be correlated with the ability to answer questions that required children to reason about additivity. Our results support an inferential reasoning explanation of cue competition effects.     

The effects of repeated experience on children's suggestibility

The effect of suggestive questions on 3- to 5-year-old and 6- to 8-year-old children's recall of the final occurrence of a repeated event was examined. The event included fixed (identical) items as well as variable items where a new instantiation represented the item in each occurrence of the series. Relative to reports of children who participated in a single occurrence, children's reports about fixed items of the repeated event were more accurate and less contaminated by false suggestions. For variable items, repeated experience led to a decline in memory of the specific occurrence; however, there was no increase in susceptibility to suggestions about details that had not occurred. Most errors after repeated experience were intrusions of details from nontarget occurrences. Although younger children and children who were interviewed a while after the event were more suggestible, respectively, than older children and those interviewed soon after the event, repeated experience attenuated these effects.     

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.     

Confidence judgments in event recall: developmental progression in the impact of question format

Two studies were conducted to examine developmental progression in children's and adults' ability to adequately monitor their own attempts to recall event details as well as the dependence of such metamemorial competencies on question formats. Eight and 10-year-old children as well as adults (Study 1, N=116; Study 2, N=60) rated their confidence when responding to specific questions about an observed event. Confirming most recent results, children and adults gave higher confidence ratings after correct than after incorrect answers. This ability, however, was limited to an unbiased question format. When being asked misleading questions, children's ability to differentiate was undermined, as reflected in equally high confidence judgments after correct and incorrect answers, even when the interview contained a mix of misleading and unbiased questions. When the interviewer "bombarded" the children with an uninterrupted series of misleading questions, children's difficulties appeared to be even more pronounced. These findings highlight the importance of the way in which questions are asked, and point to age-related progression in the relative impact of questioning style.     

Why do the effects of delaying reinforcement in animals and delaying feedback in humans differ? A working-memory analysis

Animal research has shown that reinforcement is substantially less effective when it is delayed, but in studies of human motor learning delays in providing feedback typically have much less effect. One possible explanation is that in human research participants know the response to be learned and can thus focus on it during the delay; that is not the case in experiments on animals. We tested this hypothesis using a task in which participants had minimal information on what movement was correct and found that, as in animal experiments, participants learned only when feedback was immediate. A second experiment confirmed that the effects of the delay depended on how many responses had to be held in working memory: the greater the memory load, the poorer the learning. The results point to the importance of activity during a delay on learning; implications for the teaching of motor skills are discussed.     

Why do the effects of delaying reinforcement in animals and delaying feedback in humans differ? A working-memory analysis

Animal research has shown that reinforcement is substantially less effective when it is delayed, but in studies of human motor learning delays in providing feedback typically have much less effect. One possible explanation is that in human research participants know the response to be learned and can thus focus on it during the delay; that is not the case in experiments on animals. We tested this hypothesis using a task in which participants had minimal information on what movement was correct and found that, as in animal experiments, participants learned only when feedback was immediate. A second experiment confirmed that the effects of the delay depended on how many responses had to be held in working memory: the greater the memory load, the poorer the learning. The results point to the importance of activity during a delay on learning; implications for the teaching of motor skills are discussed.     

Less is More: How manipulative features affect children's learning from picture books

Picture books are ubiquitous in young children's lives and are assumed to support children's acquisition of information about the world. Given their importance, relatively little research has directly examined children's learning from picture books. We report two studies examining children's acquisition of labels and facts from picture books that vary on two dimensions: iconicity of the pictures and presence of manipulative features (or "pop-ups"). In Study 1, 20-month-old children generalized novel labels less well when taught from a book with manipulative features than from standard picture books without such elements. In Study 2, 30- and 36-month-old children learned fewer facts when taught from a manipulative picture book with drawings than from a standard picture book with realistic images and no manipulative features. The results of the two studies indicate that children's learning from picture books is facilitated by realistic illustrations, but impeded by manipulative features.     

Children's reasoning about physics within and across ontological kinds

Reasoning about seven physics principles within and across ontological kinds was examined among 188 5- and 7-year-olds and 59 adults. Individuals in all age groups tended to appropriately generalize what they learned across ontological kinds. However, children also showed sensitivity to ontological kind in their projections: when learning principles with reference to people they were more likely to assume that the principles apply to another person than to an inanimate object, and when learning with reference to an inanimate object they were more likely to assume that the principles apply to another inanimate object than to a person. Five-year-olds, but not 7-year-olds, projected concepts learned about people to a greater extent than principles learned about inanimate objects, closely paralleling the findings of Carey for the biological domain (Carey, S. (1985). Conceptual change in childhood. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). Results from a separate sample of 22 5-year-olds suggest that the primary findings cannot be explained by response perseveration. The present findings indicate that children understand physics principles that apply to both animate and inanimate objects, but distinguish between these ontological kinds.     

The role of discourse context in developing word form representations: a paradoxical relation between reading and learning

To acquire representations of printed words, children must attend to the written form of a word and link this form with the word's pronunciation. When words are read in context, they may be read with less attention to these features, and this can lead to poorer word form retention. Two experiments with young children (ages 5-8 years) confirmed this hypothesis. In our experiments, children attempted to read words they could not previously read, during a self-teaching period, either in context or in isolation. Later they were tested on how well they learned the words as a function of self-teaching condition (isolation or context). Consistent with previous research, children read more words accurately in context than in isolation during self-teaching; however, children had better retention for words learned in isolation. Furthermore, this benefit from learning in isolation was larger for less skilled readers. This effect of poorer word retention when words are learned in context is paradoxical because context has been shown to facilitate word identification. We discuss factors that may influence this effect of context, especially the role of children's skill level and the demands of learning new word representations at the beginning of reading instruction.     

Carrot-Eaters and Creature-Believers: The Effects of Lexicalization on Children's Inferences About SocialCategories

This article examines how language affects children's inferences about novel social categories. We hypothesized that lexicalization (using a noun label to refer to someone who possesses a certain property) would influence children's inferences about other people. Specifically, we hypothesized that when a property is lexicalized, it is thought to be more stable over time and over contexts. One hundred fifteen children (5- and 7-year-olds) learned about a characteristic of a hypothetical person (e.g., "Rose eats a lot of carrots"). Half the children were told a noun label for each character (e.g., "She is a carrot-eater"), whereas half heard a verbal predicate (e.g., "She eats carrots whenever she can"). The children judged characteristics as significantly more stable over time and over contexts when the characteristics were referred to by a noun than when they were referred to by a verbal predicate. Lexicalization (in the form of a noun) provides important information to children regarding the stability of personal characteristics.     

Children's questions about interparent conflict and violence: what's a mother to say?

This research examined the relation between mothers' responses to children's questions about interparent conflict and children's adjustment. Participants were 134 mothers and their children (70 boys, 64 girls), aged 7 to 10. In each family, an act of intimate-partner violence (IPV) had recently occurred. Mothers' responses to children's questions about interparent conflict were assessed via a semistructured interview coded to reflect the extent to which the mothers' responses addressed the content of the children's questions. Mothers and children reported on physical IPV. Mothers also reported on interparent conflict, parent-child aggression, and maternal warmth. Children's adjustment was assessed via mothers' and children's reports at two time points 6 months apart. The extent to which mothers' responses addressed the content of the children's questions about interparent conflict was negatively associated with children's adjustment problems, after accounting for the frequency of physical IPV, frequency of interparent conflict, parent-child aggression, and maternal warmth. These associations emerged cross-sectionally and prospectively. However, in those prospective analyses that accounted for children's baseline levels of adjustment, maternal responsiveness was not associated with later children's adjustment problems.     

Helping children correctly say "I don't know" to unanswerable questions

Adults ask children questions in a variety of contexts, for example, in the classroom, in the forensic context, or in experimental research. In such situations children will inevitably be asked some questions to which they do not know the answer, because they do not have the required information ("unanswerable" questions). When asked unanswerable questions, it is important that children indicate that they do not have the required information to provide an answer. These 2 studies investigated whether preinterview instructions (Experiment 1) or establishing a memory narrative (Experiment 2) helped children correctly indicate a lack of knowledge to unanswerable questions. In both studies, 6- and 8-year-olds participated in a classroom-based event about which they were subsequently interviewed. Some of the questions were answerable, and some were unanswerable. Results showed that preinterview instructions increased the number of younger children's appropriate "don't know" responses to unanswerable questions, without decreasing correct responses to answerable questions. This suggests that demand characteristics affect children's tendency correctly to say "I don't know." The opportunity to provide a narrative account increased children's appropriate "don't know" responses to unanswerable yes/no questions, and increased the number of younger children's correct responses to answerable questions. This suggests that cognitive factors also contribute to children's tendency correctly to say "I don't know." These results have implications for any context where adults need to obtain information from children through questioning, for example, a health practitioner asking about a medical condition, in classroom discourse, in the investigative interview, and in developmental psychology research.     

The relative strengths of indirect and direct word learning

Indirect word learning lacks many of the overt social-pragmatic cues to reference available in direct word learning, yet the two result in equally robust mappings when comprehension is assessed immediately after learning. The 3 studies reported here investigated how 3-year-olds (N=96) respond to more challenging tests of the relative strengths of indirect and direct word learning. In Study 1, children's comprehension of indirectly and directly learned proper and common names was tested after a 2-day delay. Both types of learning resulted in proper name mappings that picked out an individual and in common name mappings that could be extended to another category member. In Studies 2 and 3, children's comprehension was tested after they had been provided with additional, and sometimes inconsistent, information about the scope of previously learned words. There was a hint of a difference between indirect and direct word learning. but results overall suggested that the two were equivalent.     

The influence of age, gender, and having a younger sibling on children's knowledge about babies.

This article reports on two studies designed to measure 4- to 7-year-old children's knowledge about babies and its relationship to gender role development. In Study 1, children were asked several questions about babies and were given the Sex Role Learning Index (SERLI; Edelbrock & Sugawara, 1978). Girls provided more answers to one question, and children with younger siblings provided more answers to another. Overall, however, there were few relationships between knowledge about babies and gender role development. The second study measured knowledge about babies with two measures. The first measure asked children to identify foods that babies could eat and activities babies were capable of doing. The second measure asked children to identify the names and uses of certain objects. Older children scored higher on the foods and activities measure. Children who had younger siblings performed better on the objects measure. Gender and gender role development showed little relationship to knowledge about babies.     

Learning about life and death in early childhood

have argued that young children initially understand biological phenomena in terms of vitalism, a mode of construal in which "life" or "life-force" is the central causal-explanatory concept. This study investigated the development of vitalistic reasoning in young children's concepts of life, the human body and death. Sixty preschool children between the ages of 3 years, 7 months and 5 years, 11 months participated. All children were initially given structured interviews to assess their knowledge of (1) human body function and (2) death. From this sample 40 children in the Training group were taught about the human body and how it functions to maintain life. The Control group (n=20) received no training. All 60 children were subsequently reassessed on their knowledge of human body function and death. Results from the initial interviews indicated that young children who spontaneously appealed to vitalistic concepts in reasoning about human body functioning were also more sophisticated in their understanding of death. Results from the posttraining interviews showed that children readily learned to adopt a vitalistic approach to human body functioning, and that this learning coincided with significant development in their understanding of human body function, and of death. The overall pattern of results supports the claim that the acquisition of a vitalistic causal-explanatory framework serves to structure children's concepts and facilitates learning in the domain of biology.     

Remembering children's emotions: sources of concordant and discordant accounts between parents and children.

Parents were asked to recall recent events that had evoked happiness, sadness, anger, and fear in their children. Children (N = 77, 2.3-6.6 years) indicated whether they remembered each event, and if so, they described the event and how it had made them feel. Agreement between parent and child concerning how the child felt varied as a function of emotion. Children agreed with their parents' emotion attributions most often for events that parents recalled as having evoked happiness and sadness, less often for fear, and least often for anger. Children disagreed with parents' attributions of happiness and sadness most often when parents and children differed concerning the attribution of children's goals. Discordant reports about children's anger were most frequent when parents and children reported conflicting goals. Discordant reports about fear were most frequent when parents and children focused on different parts of the temporal sequence surrounding the event.     

Examining the efficacy of truth/lie discussions in predicting and increasing the veracity of children's reports

This study investigated whether children's ability to reason about truths and lies influenced their truth-telling behavior. Four-six-year-old children (n=118) played a game that was intended to motivate children to use deception to hide a minor transgression. Next, an interviewer gave children one of four preliminary discussions. Children received a typical forensic truth/lie discussion (TLD), a developmentally appropriate and more elaborate TLD, or one of two discussions that controlled for the time spent conversing with children. Children were interviewed about the event. The results revealed that children's performance on the truth/lie questions did not predict their truth-telling behavior. Regardless of their performance on truth/lie questions, children who received TLD's gave more honest reports than children who did not receive TLD's. These results suggest that discussing truths and lies with children may promote truth-telling behavior. However, the results cast doubt on the validity of using children's performance on truth/lie questions as a measure of competency.