Longitudinal associations between children's understanding of emotions and theory of mind

Theory of mind competence and knowledge of emotions were studied longitudinally in a sample of preschoolers aged 3 (n=263) and 4 (n=244) years. Children were assessed using standard measures of theory of mind and emotion knowledge. Three competing hypotheses were tested regarding the developmental associations between children's theory of mind abilities and their knowledge of emotions. First, that an understanding of emotion develops early and informs children's understanding of others’ thinking. Alternatively, having a basic theory of mind may help children learn about emotions. Third, that the two domains are separate aspects of children's social cognitive skills such that each area develops independently. Results of hierarchical regressions supported the first hypothesis that early emotion understanding predicts later theory-of-mind performance, and not the reverse.     

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN PRESCHOOL CHILDREN'S NARRATIVE FANTASY

In this study, 22 female and 20 male 3- to 5-year-old children were presented with six story starts and were asked to finish the stories. In their stories, girls introduced significantly more friendly figures who offered assistance; boys introduced significantly more aggressive behavior and attempts to master situations through the use of aggressive activity. Girls told significantly more stories about girls; boys tended to tell more stories about boys. A factor analysis of the coding categories is discussed. The analysis of the fantasy narratives showed boys to be more concerned with coping with aggressive drives and channeling them into attempts at mastery, and girls with caretaking and responding to the needs of others.     

Creative thinking and brain network development in schoolchildren

Fostering creative minds has always been a premise to ensure adaptation to new challenges of human civilization. While some alternative educational settings (i.e., Montessori) were shown to nurture creative skills, it is unknown how they impact underlying brain mechanisms across the school years. This study assessed creative thinking and resting-state functional connectivity via fMRI in 75 children (4–18 y.o.) enrolled either in Montessori or traditional schools. We found that pedagogy significantly influenced creative performance and underlying brain networks. Replicating past work, Montessori-schooled children showed higher scores on creative thinking tests. Using static functional connectivity analysis, we found that Montessori-schooled children showed decreased within-network functional connectivity of the salience network. Moreover, using dynamic functional connectivity, we found that traditionally-schooled children spent more time in a brain state characterized by high intra-default mode network connectivity. These findings suggest that pedagogy may influence brain networks relevant to creative thinking—particularly the default and salience networks. Further research is needed, like a longitudinal study, to verify these results given the implications for educational practitioners. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWV_5o8wB5g .

Research Highlights

• Most executive jobs are prospected to be obsolete within several decades, so creative skills are seen as essential for the near future.
• School experience has been shown to play a role in creativity development, however, the underlying brain mechanisms remained under-investigated yet.
• Seventy-five 4–18 years-old children, from Montessori or traditional schools, performed a creativity task at the behavioral level, and a 6-min resting-state MR scan.
• We uniquely report preliminary evidence for the impact of pedagogy on functional brain networks.