Figural factors and the development of pictorial inferences

The role of figural characteristics in the development of pictorial inferences was examined. Two versions of 10 three-picture story sequences were presented to kindergarten and third-grade children. One version maximized while the other minimized figural similarity among pictures. After viewing the sequences, the children were asked to discriminate old study pictures and inferentially consistent new pictures from distractors. While the kindergarteners identified significantly fewer inference pictures than the third graders in all conditions, there was less difference between the grades in the figurally similar conditions. Overall, the kindergarteners identified the fewest inference pictures in the presence of distractors that figurally matched the study pictures. These results indicate that although the pictorial inferences drawn by kindergarteners are heavily influenced by figural representations, such figural dependency cannot account for all of the observed developmental differences.     

“The Grand Experiment”: Modeling Adult Learning with Adult‐Ministry Students

Abstract. Adult‐learning theory challenges faculty to adapt their teaching to certain characteristics of adult learners, including self‐direction: if adults direct the bulk of their lives outside of school, they should be permitted to direct their own educational experiences. To what extent is self‐directed learning an optimal, or even realistic, methodology for seminary teaching? Does it matter what subjects we are teaching? This essay details an experiment with self‐directed learning in a seminary ministry class: what worked, what might be improved, and how it challenges our view of ourselves as faculty to teach in this way. Student feedback from the course in question enhances our understanding of the best (and most challenging) features of the experiment.     

Incentivizing education: Seeing schoolwork as an investment, not a chore

Most American children expect to attend college but because they do not necessarily spend much time on schoolwork, they may fail to reach their imagined “college-bound” future self. The proposed identity-based motivation model helps explain why this gap occurs: Imagined “college-bound” identities cue school-focused behavior if they are salient and feel relevant to current choice options, not otherwise. Two studies with predominantly low-income and African American middle school students support this prediction. Almost all of the students expect to attend college, but only half describe education-dependent (e.g., law, medicine) adult identities. Having education-dependent rather than education-independent adult identities (e.g., sports, entertainment) predicts better grades over time, controlling for prior grade point average (Study 1). To demonstrate causality, salience of education-dependent vs. education-independent adult identities was experimentally manipulated. Children who considered education-dependent adult identities (vs. education-independent ones) were eight times more likely to complete a take-home extra-credit assignment (Study 2).     

Children's cognitive maps of large-scale spaces: Effects of exploration,direction, and repeated experience

Kindergarteners and third graders (mean ages 5–10 and 8–9 years) repeatedly encountered a model town and then constructed the town from memory. In Experiment 1, the effect of different types of exploration on the development of a cognitive map was assessed. Children who were directed to walk within the town placed buildings more accurately than children who had walked along the town's perimeter. Children who walked within the town and were directed to the spatial relationships among buildings had the highest placement accuracy. Third graders were more accurate than kindergarteners across the three types of exploration. In Experiment 2, children were permitted to explore the town alone for an unlimited amount of time. Under these conditions, third graders still placed buildings more accurately than kindergarteners. A comparison of Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that children developed more accurate cognitive maps when motor activity and attention were directed by the experimenter as opposed to being directed by the child. Accuracy improved with repeated walks and constructions in both experiments, and the results of Experiment 3 suggested that constructing facilitated the development of the cognitive map as much as walking. It was concluded that third graders' cognitive maps were more accurate than kindergarteners' maps due to differences in the speed of acquisition and storage of spatial information.     

Play behaviors of handicapped preschool children in the presence and absence of nonhandicapped peers

Sixteen minimally handicapped children and 18 nonhandicapped children were observed playing as separate classes and as a combined group on their preschool playground. Play behaviors directed toward self, toys, teachers, and peers were recorded using a time sampling procedure. Repeated measures analyses revealed that: (1) handicapped children engaged in less peer-directed and more teacher-directed behaviors than the similar chronological age but developmentally more advanced normal children; (2) a comparison between a subsample of normal and handicapped children who were approximately equivalent on developmental age suggested that the normal children only vocalized more often; (3) when integrated with the normal children, handicapped children engaged in more peer-directed and less teacher-directed behaviors than when playing in the non-integrated situation; (4) during the combined group play situation, normal children directed more behaviors to their own classmates while handicapped children directed approximately equal amounts of behavior to their own classmates and to their normal peers. These results suggest that the normal children were not negatively affected and the handicapped children were positively affected by the integrated play situation.     

With a little help from my friends: Understanding how social networks influence the pursuit of the ideal self

The present investigation examined how people utilize their social networks when pursuing the ideal self. Participants who spent time with social partners who possessed their desired ideal self characteristic experienced movement toward their ideal self when the partner provided behavioral affirmation (eliciting behaviors consistent with the ideal self), but experienced movement away from their ideal self when the partner provided perceptual affirmation (perceiving them as if they already possessed the desired characteristic). High self-esteem participants were especially likely to seek out social partners of the latter type, who saw them as their ideal selves, but did not offer behavioral assistance. This research highlights the importance of social networks for understanding the conditions in which social partners promote vs. hinder ideal self progress.     

The obligatory effects of memory on eye movements

Previous work has shown that eye movement behaviour is affected by previous experience, such that alterations in viewing patterns can be observed to previously viewed compared to novel displays. The current work addresses the extent to which such effects of memory on eye movement behaviour are obligatory; that is, we examined whether prior experience could alter subsequent eye movement behaviour under a variety of testing conditions, for stimuli that varied on the nature of the prior exposure. While task demands influenced whether viewing was predominantly directed to the novel versus familiar faces, viewing of the familiar faces was distinguished from viewing of the novel faces, regardless of whether the task required incidental encoding or intentional retrieval. Changes in scanning of previously viewed over novel faces emerged early in viewing; in particular, viewing duration of the first fixation to the familiar faces was often significantly different from the duration of the first fixation directed to the novel faces, regardless of whether prior exposure was solely in the context of the experiment or due to real-world exposure. These findings suggest that representations maintained in memory may be retrieved and compared with presented information obligatorily.     

The obligatory effects of memory on eye movements

Previous work has shown that eye movement behaviour is affected by previous experience, such that alterations in viewing patterns can be observed to previously viewed compared to novel displays. The current work addresses the extent to which such effects of memory on eye movement behaviour are obligatory; that is, we examined whether prior experience could alter subsequent eye movement behaviour under a variety of testing conditions, for stimuli that varied on the nature of the prior exposure. While task demands influenced whether viewing was predominantly directed to the novel versus familiar faces, viewing of the familiar faces was distinguished from viewing of the novel faces, regardless of whether the task required incidental encoding or intentional retrieval. Changes in scanning of previously viewed over novel faces emerged early in viewing; in particular, viewing duration of the first fixation to the familiar faces was often significantly different from the duration of the first fixation directed to the novel faces, regardless of whether prior exposure was solely in the context of the experiment or due to real-world exposure. These findings suggest that representations maintained in memory may be retrieved and compared with presented information obligatorily.     

Filtering by movement in visual search.

Search for a target defined by a conjunction of movement and form (e.g., an X moving up in a display of intermingled Os moving up and stationary Xs) is parallel. This result is also found if (a) the moving Os and target X move in unpredictable directions so that the moving stimuli do not form a clear perceptual group or (b) the nontarget Xs also move but in a known, different direction from the Os and target X. In contrast, search is slow and serial if the target may be unpredictably among either moving or stationary stimuli. These results suggest that a component of the visual system operates as a movement filter that can direct attention to stimuli with a common movement characteristic. The filtering cue can be moving (vs. stationary), or movement in 1 particular direction. The results do not support the view that attention can only be directed to groups defined by common fate.     

Effects of treatments and their outcomes on peer perceptions of a hyperactive child

In an exploration of the social impacts of treatments for hyperactivity, two age groups (kindergarteners and first-graders vs. fourth- and fifth-graders) heard about a hyperactive child whose problem was treated either by an internal and controllable means (effort) or by an external and uncontrollable means (medication) and whose behavior either did or did not improve. The attributions and affective responses of both age groups were influenced by both the nature and the effectiveness of treatment, and there was only weak support for the hypothesis that younger children are more influenced by treatment outcome than older children are. However, older children, conforming to attribution theory predictions, held target children more accountabe for the success or failure of their own efforts than for the outcomes of medication, particularly valuing the child whose own efforts succeeded. By contrast, young children judged the child whose efforts failed as more worthy of pride and more likable than the child whose medication failed. Implications for peer acceptance of hyperactive children over the childhood years are discussed.Portions of this paper were presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Atlanta, March 1985. Thanks are extended to the staff and students of the Model Laboratory School.     

The effect of adult influence on children's preferences: Compliance versus opposition

The present study examined the effects of adult influence on the choice preferences of first and fifth grade girls and boys. It was found that when the adult directed the children as to which choice alternative to choose, all children (both grades and both sexes) preferred that alternative advocated by the adult. When, however, the adult's influence attempt was followed by another adult's stating that the child should choose whatever he/she wanted, first graders displayed oppositional behavior (preferring the alternative not urged by the first adult), while fifth graders continued to comply with the first adult's influence. These results suggested that oppositional behavior in first grade children may occur as a function of conflict between adults regarding adult control over the child.The author would like to thank the staff and students at the Price's Fork Elementary School, Blacksburg, Virginia, for their invaluable assistance in conducting this study. The author is indebted to Marie Kerwan, Twila Stephenson, and Jeanne Warren for their excellent work as experimenters.     

Children's understanding of food and its functions: A preliminary study of the development of concepts of nutrition

Children's developing conceptions of how the body functions nutritionally were examined. Two different tasks provided converging findings. One task asked children to judge the causes of certain end states (e.g., why X is fat). The second task asked children to judge the result of certain contrasting diets (e.g., twin-1 eats twice as much candy as twin-2). The results evidenced; (a) systematic misconceptions on the part of kindergarteners that were overcome by sixth grade; and (b) other fairly sophisticated conceptions present even at the youngest ages tested. The research provides a needed first step toward describing the naive theories of nutrition possessed by children at different ages. Knowledge of childrens' theories of nutrition are essential for optimal planning of curricula and methods in nutrition education.     

Children’s Responses to Computer‐Synthesized Speech in Educational Media: Gender Consistency and Gender Similarity Effects

This study examines children’s social responses to gender cues in synthesized speech in a computer‐based instruction setting. Eighty 5th‐grade elementary school children were randomly assigned to one of the conditions in a full‐factorial 2 (participant gender) × 2 (voice gender) × 2 (content gender) experiment. Results show that children apply gender‐based social rules to synthesized speech. More specifically, children evaluate synthesized speech more positively, trust the speech more, and learn more effectively when voice gender matches either content gender (consistency attraction) and/or their own gender (similarity attraction). Children’s computer self‐efficacy was a significant covariate for their social responses to synthesized speech. Theoretical and practical implications of the current study for the design of educational media are discussed.     

What Kind of Paintings Inspire Children when Viewing Art?

Viewing art inspires creativity, which can encourage learning in art education. A previous study revealed that the type of artwork and the way art is viewed affects adults' inspiration; however, no study exists concerning the way children are inspired by viewing art. Thus, the current study aimed to examine whether children's age group/grade level, art style (figurative or abstract), and artwork creators (children or adults) influence children's inspiration, and whether the effects of the art style and creators vary by children's age group/grade level. An online questionnaire survey was conducted with the help of 600 pairs of parents and their elementary-school-aged children. They were asked to view eight paintings that differed in terms of the artists and their individual style and they then rated their inspiration experience when viewing each artwork. The results revealed that children were more inspired when viewing abstract, rather than figurative, paintings, and the effect of the type of painting differed in the third and sixth grades. Additionally, children gained more inspiration by viewing paintings created by children rather than by adults; a difference observed in all grade levels.     

Children's developing understanding of differences between their own intentional action and passive movement

Four studies examined 3‐ and 4‐year‐olds' ability to judge accurately whether they acted intentionally. Children self‐initiated action to attain an outcome, or their arm was moved by the experimenter to create an outcome. In Experiment 3, children in both age groups accurately claimed they were agents of self‐guided action but not of passive movement. In contrast, in Experiments 1, 2 and 4, children in both age groups found it difficult to deny they intended to bring about the outcome, even though their movement was passive and, in some cases, the outcome was unexpected. They were consistently successful only when exclusively involved in creating one of two outcomes and asked which one they intended (Experiment 4). In sum, 3‐and 4‐year‐olds can distinguish when their movements are self‐directed and when they are passive. They are limited, however, in applying this distinction to self‐judgments concerning whether they acted intentionally. These findings are discussed with respect to linguistic and cognitive limitations that may influence the role first‐person knowledge plays in theory‐of‐mind development.     

Measurement and comparison of anxiety levels of parents of stuttering, articulatory defective, and normal-speaking children

This study was conducted to determine whether or not parents of stutterers are generally more anxious than parents of nonstutterers. In addition, the situational anxiety attendant upon the viewing of their own children was compared with that of parents of articulatory defective and normal-speaking children. Seven sets of parents of stutterers, articulatory defective, and normal speaking children (N = 42) were administered the A-Trait measure of the Self-Evaluation Questionnaire (Spielberger et al., 1965) before and after viewing videotapes of their own chilg and a child of each of the two other groups. Results indicating that parents of stuttering children exhibit more situational anxiety than parents in either of the other two groups are discussed in terms of their clinical implications.     

Electrophysiological responses in mothers to their own and unfamiliar child's gaze information

An attachment bond between a mother and her child is one of the most intimate human relationships. It is important for a mother to be sensitive to her child's gaze direction because exchanging gaze information plays a vital role in their relationship. Furthermore, recent studies have revealed differential neural activation patterns in mothers when presented the faces of their own children or the unfamiliar child of other people. Based on these findings, in the present study, we investigated whether mothers show differential neural responses to gaze information of their own child compared to that of an unfamiliar child. To this end, event-related-potentials elicited by the faces of one's own or an unfamiliar child with straight or averted gaze directions were measured using an oddball-paradigm. The results showed that peak amplitudes of the N170 component were enlarged by viewing the straight gazes compared to the averted gazes of one's own child, but not of an unfamiliar child. When the gaze was directed straight, the P3 amplitude elicited by one's own child's face is smaller than that elicited by an unfamiliar child's face. P3s elicited in viewing one's own child's face with averted gaze and in viewing an unfamiliar child's face with straight gaze were positively correlated with state-anxiety. These results bolster the hypothesis that processing the gaze information of one's own child elicits differential neural activation compared to the gaze information of an other person's unfamiliar child at both perceptual and evaluative stages of face processing.     

The influence of restricted viewing conditions on egocentric distance perception: implications for real and virtual indoor environments

We carried out three experiments to examine the influence of field of view and binocular viewing restrictions on absolute distance perception in real-world indoor environments. Few of the classical visual cues provide direct information for accurate absolute distance judgments to points in the environment beyond about 2 m from the viewer. Nevertheless, in previous work it has been found that visually directed walking tasks reveal accurate distance estimations in full-cue real-world environments to distances up to 20 m. In contrast, the same tasks in virtual environments produced with head-mounted displays (HMDs) show large compression of distance. Field of view and binocular viewing are common limitations in research with HMDs, and have been rarely studied under full pictorial-cue conditions in the context of distance perception in the real-world. Experiment 1 showed that the view of one's body and feet on the floor was not necessary for accurate distance perception. In experiment 2 we manipulated the horizontal and the vertical field of view along with head rotation and found that a restricted field of view did not affect the accuracy of distance estimations when head movement was allowed. Experiment 3 showed that performance with monocular viewing was equal to that with binocular viewing. These results have implications for the information needed to scale egocentric distance in the real-world and reduce the support for the hypothesis that a limited field of view or imperfections in binocular image presentation are the cause of the underestimation seen with HMDs.     

Effects on modeling sequential body movements when viewed from the front or rear

This study investigated the effect of having a model demonstration viewed from the rear and/or front on the subsequent acquisition of sequential gross-movement patterns, and further examined how participants who observed the bi-angle model directed their attention toward the rear view or the front view in mirror. The movement pattern consisted of seven pauses. A total of 36 participants was divided into three groups: the rear-angle group, which observed the rear view; the front-angle group, which observed from the front view and had to change the motions into their mirror opposites; and the bi-angle group, which observed the rear view and the front view in the mirror. The results showed that (1) all groups acquired the movement pattern, (2) the bi-angle and the rear-angle groups reproduced the demonstrated movement more accurately than the front-angle group, and (3) the bi-angle group tended to focus gaze on viewing the model from the rear. These results suggest that rear viewing was more effective than front viewing, because the participants could simply copy the motion, the bi-angle group members directed their visual attention to the view from the rear without any instruction about observational strategy, and modeling effect was the same for the rear-angle group and the bi-angle group.     

Development of Visual Self-Recognition in Infancy

This research investigated the development of visual self-recognition in infancy. Prior research has investigated infants' self-perception in mirror or live video stimulation in which visual-proprioceptive contingency is available. No research, however, has addressed the young infants' ability to recognize his or her own face on the basis of featural information. Infants of 2, 3, 5, and 8 months of age viewed video films of their own face side by side with that of a peer. The faces were presented under both moving and still conditions. Results indicated that by the age of 3 months, infants discriminated the self from the peer and demonstrated a significant visual preference for the face of the peer. This suggests that infants already are familiar with their own visual appearance by 3 months of age. Given that most infants had received at least daily exposure to their mirror image, it was hypothesized that featural recognition of the self developed through mirror exposure. It was further suggested that viewing one's face in the context of the contingency provided by the mirror serves as a basis for perceiving the face as belonging to the self.