The shape of boubas: sound-shape correspondences in toddlers and adults

A striking demonstration that sound–object correspondences are not completely arbitrary is that adults map nonsense words with rounded vowels (e.g. bouba) to rounded shapes and nonsense words with unrounded vowels (e.g. kiki) to angular shapes ( Köhler, 1947 ; Ramachandran & Hubbard, 2001 ). Here we tested the bouba/kiki phenomenon in 2.5‐year‐old children and a control group of adults (n =20 per age), using four pairs of rounded versus pointed shapes and four contrasting pairs of nonsense words differing in vowel sound. Overall, participants at both ages matched words with rounded vowels to the rounder shapes and words with unrounded vowels to the pointed shapes (both ps < .0005), with no significant difference between the two ages (p > .10). Such naturally biased correspondences between sound and shape may influence the development of language.     

Inviting witnesses to speculate: effects of age and interaction on children's recall

Inviting speculation has been found to increase children's false recall. In this study, kindergartners and third graders saw a clown perform actions alone or in interaction with a child. Two weeks later, the speculation group recalled all actions and was asked to speculate on half the actions. The control group recalled all actions without speculating. Four weeks after the show, all children recalled all actions again. The speculation group gave more false answers to the speculated items than the control group. Surprisingly, older children tended to report as many if not more false responses than younger children, regardless of speculation. In the speculation group, there were fewer false answers for interactions than actions, but false answers did not differ across observation types in the control group. Finally, speculation did not affect free and cued recall differentially.     

Face Perception During Early Infancy

Previous studies of face perception during early infancy are difficult to interpret because of discrepant results and procedural differences. We used a standardized method based on the Teller acuity card procedure to test newborns, 6-week-olds, and 12-week-olds with three pairs of face and nonface stimuli modified from previous studies. Newborns' preferences were influenced both by the visibility of the stimuli and by their resemblance to a human face. There appears to be a mechanism, likely subcortical, predisposing newborns to look toward faces. Changes in preferences at 6 and 12 weeks of age suggest increasing cortical influence over infants' preferences for faces.     

Effects of target set sizeon feelings of knowing and cued recall: Implications for the cue effectiveness andpartial-retrieval hypotheses

Target set size refers to the number of preexisting connections a studied word has to closely related concepts in long-term memory. The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether target set size influences feeling-of-knowing (FOK) ratings. The results showed that ratings were higher for targets connected to smaller sets, as compared with those connected to larger sets. Comparable effects were obtained with the use of different encoding strategies, including concreteness classifications and vowel naming, and with both meaningfully and phonologically related test cues. These findings indicate that FOKsare sensitive to competition between concepts linked to the target and that this sensitivity is independent of encoding strategy and type of test cue. Response time measures indicated that FOKs are sensitive to competition that arises when concepts are activated in parallel, whereas recall is more sensitive to competition that arises during sampling associated with search. Implications for various cue-based and target-based explanations of FOK effects are discussed.     

WHEN MORE PAIN IS PREFERRED TO LESS:

Abstract— Subjects were exposed to two aversive experiences: in the short trial, they immersed one hand in water at 14°C for 60 s; in the long trial, they immersed the other hand at 14°C for 60 s, then kept the hand in the water 30 s longer as the temperature of the water was gradually raised to 15°C, still painful but distinctly less so for most subjects. Subjects were later given a choice of which trial to repeat. A significant majority chose to repeat the long trial, apparently preferring more pain over less. The results add to other evidence suggesting that duration plays a small role in retrospective evaluations of aversive experiences; such evaluations are often dominated by the discomfort at the worst and at the final moments of episodes.     

Socioeconomic status and executive function in early childhood: Exploring proximal mechanisms

Although there is substantial evidence that socioeconomic status (SES) predicts children's executive function (EF), the mechanisms underlying this association are poorly understood. This study tested the utility of two theories proposed to link SES to children's EF: the family stress model and the family investment model. Data came from the Midwestern Infant Development Study (N = 151). To measure SES, parental education and income were assessed during pregnancy, and income was also assessed when children were 6 and 36 months old. Children's EF, operationalized as working memory/inhibitory control (WMIC) and self‐control, was assessed at 36 months of age, along with potential mediators including maternal psychological distress, harsh parenting, and cognitive stimulation. Using structural equation modeling, we tested simultaneous pathways from SES to EF: (a) via maternal psychological distress to harsh parenting (family stress model) and (b) via cognitive stimulation (family investment model). Of the SES measures, lower education predicted poorer WMIC directly and indirectly via greater maternal psychological distress. Lower education also predicted poorer self‐control via greater maternal psychological distress. This effect was partially suppressed by an indirect path from lower education to better self‐control via greater psychological distress and increased harsh parenting. Cognitive stimulation did not act as a mediator. Income was not directly or indirectly associated with EF. These findings provide partial support for the family stress model and suggest that family functioning is an important proximal mechanism for children's EF development. This study also highlights the importance of considering SES as a multidimensional construct.     

Knowledge is not everything: analysis of children's performance on a haptic comparison task

The relative effects of developmental level and domain-specific knowledge on children's ability to identify and make similarity decisions about object concepts based only on haptic (touch) information were investigated. Children aged 4-9 years with varying levels of dinosaur knowledge completed a cross-comparison task in which they haptically explored pairs of familiar (dinosaur) and unfamiliar (sea creature) models that varied in terms of their degree of differentiability. Older children explored models more exhaustively, found more differentiating features and consequently made fewer errors than younger children did. High knowledge enabled children to identify models correctly, but was also associated with the use of a hypothesis testing strategy, which led children to make greater numbers of "miss" errors on the cross-comparison task. Performance in the control domain illustrated that the hypothesis testing strategy was specific to the high knowledge domain. Potential explanations for the role of knowledge and development in haptic exploration are considered.