Developmental change in the acuity of the "Number Sense": The Approximate Number System in 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds and adults

Behavioral, neuropsychological, and brain imaging research points to a dedicated system for processing number that is shared across development and across species. This foundational Approximate Number System (ANS) operates over multiple modalities, forming representations of the number of objects, sounds, or events in a scene. This system is imprecise and hence differs from exact counting. Evidence suggests that the resolution of the ANS, as specified by a Weber fraction, increases with age such that adults can discriminate numerosities that infants cannot. However, the Weber fraction has yet to be determined for participants of any age between 9 months and adulthood, leaving its developmental trajectory unclear. Here we identify the Weber fraction of the ANS in 3-, 4-, 5-, and 6-year-old children and in adults. We show that the resolution of this system continues to increase throughout childhood, with adultlike levels of acuity attained surprisingly late in development.     

Social Support Opinions1

This research introduces the Social Support Opinion Survey (SSOS), the first measure of social support from the provider's perspective. Studies 1–3 developed the SSOS and confirmed that support opinions can be reliably characterized as directive (attempting to govern how others cope) and nondirective (facilitating without governing how others cope). Studies 4–6 showed that social support opinions relate to more basic cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal styles. Directive opinions were related to cognitive rigidity (need for structure, need for certainty, and just‐world beliefs) and to an exchange orientation. Nondirective opinions, in contrast, were related to emotional differentiation, use of emotions as information, empathy, and a communal orientation. Thus, people may reveal who they are by how they help.     

Differential effects of regulatory fit on category learning

Motivation affects the degree to which people engage in tasks as well as the processes that they bring to bear. We explore the proposal that a fit between a person’s situationally induced self-regulatory focus and the reward structure of the task that they are pursuing supports greater flexibility in processing than does a mismatch between regulatory focus and reward structure. In two experiments, we prime regulatory focus and manipulate task reward structure. Our participants perform a rule-based learning task whose solution requires flexible strategy testing as well as an information-integration task for which flexible strategy use hinders learning. Across two experiments, we predict and obtain a three-way interaction between regulatory focus, reward structure, and task. Relative to a mismatch, a match leads to better rule-based task performance, but worse performance on the information-integration task. We relate these findings to other work on motivation and choking under pressure.     

Comparison of inhibition in two timed reaction tasks: the color and emotion Stroop tasks

The authors examined the cross-task consistency of the ability to inhibit the processing of irrelevant information. They compared interference scores on 2 widely used inhibition tasks and found that color word Stroop interference scores correlated with emotion word Stroop interference scores. An examination of physiological reactivity showed that, in general, the color Stroop was more arousing than was the emotion Stroop, most likely due to increased response conflict.     

From statistical associations to causation: what developmentalists can learn from instrumental variables techniques coupled with experimental data

In this article, the authors aim to make accessible the careful application of a method called instrumental variables (IV). Under the right analytic conditions, IV is one promising strategy for answering questions about the causal nature of associations and, in so doing, can advance developmental theory. The authors build on prior work combining the analytic approach of IV with the strengths of random assignment design, whether the experiment is conducted in the lab setting or in the "real world." The approach is detailed through an empirical example about the effects of maternal education on children's cognitive and school outcomes. With IV techniques, the authors address whether maternal education is causally related to children's cognitive development or whether the observed associations reflect some other characteristic related to parenting, income, or personality. The IV estimates show that maternal education has a positive effect on the cognitive test scores of children entering school. The authors conclude by discussing opportunities for applying these same techniques to address other questions of critical relevance to developmental science.     

Pride and perseverance: the motivational role of pride

Perseverance toward goals that carry short-term costs is an important component of adaptive functioning. The present experiments examine the role that the emotion pride may play in mediating such perseverance. Across 2 studies, pride led to greater perseverance on an effortful and hedonically negative task believed to be related to the initial source of pride. In addition, the causal efficacy of pride was further demonstrated through dissociating its effects from related alternative mechanisms. Study 1 differentiated the effects of pride from self-efficacy. Study 2 differentiated the effects of pride from general positive affect. Taken together, these findings provide support for the proposed motivational function of pride in which this emotion serves as an incentive to persevere on a task despite initial costs.