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Successful communication often involves comprehension of both spoken language and observed actions with and without objects. Even very young infants can learn associations between actions and objects as well as between words and objects. However, in daily life, children are usually confronted with both kinds of input simultaneously. Choosing the critical information to attend to in such situations might help children structure the input, and thereby, allow for successful learning. In the current study, we therefore, investigated the developmental time course of children’s and adults’ word and action learning when given the opportunity to learn both word-object and action-object associations for the same object. All participants went through a learning phase and a test phase. In the learning phase, they were presented with two novel objects which were associated with a distinct novel name (e.g., “Look, a Tanu”) and a distinct novel action (e.g., moving up and down while tilting sideways). In the test phase, participants were presented with both objects on screen in a baseline phase, then either heard one of the two labels or saw one of the two actions in a prime phase, and then saw the two objects again on screen in a recognition phase. Throughout the trial, participants’ target looking was recorded to investigate whether participants looked at the target object upon hearing its label or seeing its action, and thus, would show learning of the word-object and action-object associations. Growth curve analyses revealed that 12-month-olds showed modest learning of action-object associations, 36-month-olds learned word-object associations, and adults learned word-object and action-object associations. These results highlight how children attend to the different information types from the two modalities through which communication is addressed to them. Over time, with increased exposure to systematic word-object mappings, children attend less to action-object mappings, with the latter potentially being mediated by word-object learning even in adulthood. Thus, choosing between different kinds of input that may be more relevant in their rich environment encompassing different modalities might help learning at different points in development.
Rhythmicity characterizes both interpersonal synchrony and spoken language. Emotions and language are forms of interpersonal communication, which interact with each other throughout development. We investigated whether and how emotional synchrony between mothers and their 9-month-old infants relates to infants' word segmentation as an early marker of language development. Twenty-six 9-month-old infants and their German-speaking mothers took part in the study. To measure emotional synchrony, we coded positive, neutral and negative emotional expressions of the mothers and their infants during a free play session. We then calculated the degree to which the mothers' and their infants' matching emotional expressions followed a predictable pattern. To measure word segmentation, we familiarized infants with auditory text passages and tested how long they looked at the screen while listening to familiar versus novel words. We found that higher levels of predictability (i.e. low entropy) during mother-infant interaction is associated with infants' word segmentation performance. These findings suggest that individual differences in word segmentation relate to the complexity and predictability of emotional expressions during mother-infant interactions.
The relation between executive functions and reading comprehension in primary-school students
(2018)
Higher-order cognitive skills are necessary prerequisites for reading and understanding words, sentences and texts. In particular, research on executive functions in the cognitive domain has shown that good executive functioning in children is positively related to reading comprehension skills and that deficits in executive functioning are related to difficulties with reading comprehension. However, developmental research on literacy and self-regulation in the early school years suggests that the relation between higher-order cognitive skills and reading might not be unidirectional, but mutually interdependent in nature. Therefore, the present longitudinal study explored the bidirectional relations between executive functions and reading comprehension during primary school across a 1-year period. At two time points (T1, T2), we assessed reading comprehension at the word, sentence, and text levels as well as three components of executive functioning, that is, updating, inhibition, and attention shifting. The sample consisted of three sequential cohorts of German primary school students (N = 1657) starting in first, second, and third grade respectively (aged 6-11 years at T1). Using a latent cross-lagged-panel design, we found bidirectional longitudinal relations between executive functions and reading comprehension for second and third graders. However, for first graders, only the path from executive functioning at T1 to reading comprehension at T2 attained significance. Succeeding analyses revealed updating as the crucial component of the effect from executive functioning on later reading comprehension, whereas text reading comprehension was most predictive of later executive functioning. The potential processes underlying the observed bidirectional relations are discussed with respect to developmental changes in reading comprehension across the primary years.
There is robust evidence showing a link between executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) in 3-to 5-year-olds. However, it is unclear whether this relationship extends to middle childhood. In addition, there has been much discussion about the nature of this relationship. Whereas some authors claim that ToM is needed for EF, others argue that ToM requires EF. To date, however, studies examining the longitudinal relationship between distinct sub components of EF [i.e., attention shifting, working memory (WM) updating, inhibition] and ToM in middle childhood are rare. The present study examined (1) the relationship between three EF subcomponents (attention shifting, WM updating, inhibition) and ToM in middle childhood, and (2) the longitudinal reciprocal relationships between the EF subcomponents and ToM across a 1-year period. EF and ToM measures were assessed experimentally in a sample of 1,657 children (aged 6-11 years) at time point one (t1) and 1 year later at time point two (t2). Results showed that the concurrent relationships between all three EF subcomponents and ToM pertained in middle childhood at t1 and t2, respectively, even when age, gender, and fluid intelligence were partialle dout. Moreover, cross-lagged structural equation modeling (again, controlling for age, gender, and fluid intelligence, as well as for the earlier levels of the target variables), revealed partial support for the view that early ToM predictslater EF, but stronger evidence for the assumption that early EF predictslater ToM. The latter was found for attention shifting and WM updating, but not for inhibition. This reveals the importance of studying the exact interplay of ToM and EF across childhood development, especially with regard to different EF subcomponents. Most likely, understanding others' mental states at different levels of perspective-taking requires specific EF subcomponents, suggesting developmental change in the relations between EF and ToM across childhood.
Studies linking executive function (EF) and overweight suggest that a broad range of executive functions might influence weight via obesity-related behaviors, such as particular eating styles. Currently, however, longitudinal studies investigating this assumption in children are rare. We hypothesized that lower hot and cool EF predicts a stronger increase in eating styles related to greater weight gain (food approach) and a weaker increase in eating styles related to less weight gain (food avoidance) over a 1-year period. Hot (delay of gratification, affective decision-making) and cool (attention shifting, inhibition, working memory updating) EF was assessed experimentally in a sample of 1657 elementary-school children (German school classes 1-3) at two time points, approximately one year apart. The children's food-approach and food-avoidance behavior was rated mainly via parent questionnaires at both time points. As expected, lower levels of hot and cool EF predicted a stronger increase in several food-approach eating styles across a 1-year period, mainly in girls. Unexpectedly, poorer performance on the affective decision-making task also predicted an increase in certain food-avoidance styles, namely, slowness in eating and satiety responsiveness, in girls. Results implicate that lower EF is not only seen in eating-disordered or obese individuals but also acts as a risk factor for an increase in particular eating styles that play a role in the development of weight problems in children. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
When infants observe a human grasping action, experience-based accounts predict that all infants familiar with grasping actions should be able to predict the goal regardless of additional agency cues such as an action effect. Cue-based accounts, however, suggest that infants use agency cues to identify and predict action goals when the action or the agent is not familiar. From these accounts, we hypothesized that younger infants would need additional agency cues such as a salient action effect to predict the goal of a human grasping action, whereas older infants should be able to predict the goal regardless of agency cues. In three experiments, we presented 6-, 7-, and 11-month-olds with videos of a manual grasping action presented either with or without an additional salient action effect (Exp. 1 and 2), or we presented 7-month-olds with videos of a mechanical claw performing a grasping action presented with a salient action effect (Exp. 3). The 6-month-olds showed tracking gaze behavior, and the 11-month-olds showed predictive gaze behavior, regardless of the action effect. However, the 7-month-olds showed predictive gaze behavior in the action-effect condition, but tracking gaze behavior in the no-action-effect condition and in the action-effect condition with a mechanical claw. The results therefore support the idea that salient action effects are especially important for infants' goal predictions from 7 months on, and that this facilitating influence of action effects is selective for the observation of human hands.
During the observation of goal-directed actions, infants usually predict the goal at an earlier age when the agent is familiar (e.g., human hand) compared to unfamiliar (e.g., mechanical claw). These findings implicate a crucial role of the developing agentive self for infants' processing of others' action goals. Recent theoretical accounts suggest that predictive gaze behavior relies on an interplay between infants' agentive experience (top-down processes) and perceptual information about the agent and the action-event (bottom-up information; e.g., agency cues). The present study examined 7-, 11-, and 18-month-old infants' predictive gaze behavior for a grasping action performed by an unfamiliar tool, depending on infants' age-related action knowledge about tool-use and the display of the agency cue of producing a salient action effect. The results are in line with the notion of a systematic interplay between experience-based top-down processes and cue-based bottom-up information: Regardless of the salient action effect, predictive gaze shifts did not occur in the 7-month-olds (least experienced age group), but did occur in the 18-month-olds (most experienced age group). In the 11-month-olds, however, predictive gaze shifts occurred only when a salient action effect was presented. This sheds new light on how the developing agentive self, in interplay with available agency cues, supports infants' action-goal prediction also for observed tool-use actions.
To investigate how preschoolers acquire a tool use strategy and how they adapt their tool use to a changed situation, 2- to 4-year-olds were asked to retrieve chips from a transparent box with a rod, either by stabbing and lifting through a top opening or by pushing through a front and a back opening. In both conditions, about 40% of the children acquired effective tool use by individual learning, and 90% of the other children learned this by observing only one demonstration. When confronted with a changed situation (i.e., previous opening covered, alternative opening uncovered), children perseverated with the recently learned, but now ineffective tool use strategy. Neither age nor acquisition type of the first strategy affected preschoolers' perseverations. Results indicate that prior tool use experiences have differential effects in situations that require either transferring known functions to novel objects or using a familiar tool for an alternative purpose.
Background
Self-regulation (SR) as the ability to regulate one's own physical state, emotions, cognitions, and behavior, is considered to play a pivotal role in the concurrent and subsequent mental and physical health of an individual. Although SR skills encompass numerous sub-facets, previous research has often focused on only one or a few of these sub-facets, and only rarely on adolescence. Therefore, little is known about the development of the sub-facets, their interplay, and their specific contributions to future developmental outcomes, particularly in adolescence. To fill these research gaps, this study aims to prospectively examine (1) the development of SR and (2) their influence on adolescent-specific developmental outcomes in a large community sample.
Methods/design
Based on previously collected data from the Potsdam Intrapersonal Developmental Risk (PIER) study with three measurement points, the present prospective, longitudinal study aims to add a fourth measurement point (PIERYOUTH). We aim to retain at least 1074 participants now between 16 and 23 years of the initially 1657 participants (6-11 years of age at the first measurement point in 2012/2013; 52.2% female). The study will continue to follow a multi-method (questionnaires, physiological assessments, performance-based computer tasks), multi-facet (assessing various domains of SR), and multi-rater (self-, parent-, and teacher-report) approach. In addition, a broad range of adolescent-specific developmental outcomes is considered. In doing so, we will cover the development of SR and relevant outcomes over the period of 10 years. In addition, we intend to conduct a fifth measurement point (given prolonged funding) to investigate development up to young adulthood.
Discussion
With its broad and multimethodological approach, PIERYOUTH aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the development and role of various SR sub-facets from middle childhood to adolescence. The large sample size and low drop-out rates in the first three measurements points form a sound database for our present prospective research.Trial registration German Clinical Trials Register, registration number DRKS00030847.