Young children learn about prejudice by instruction, older children by experience

2012 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Older Children

Instruction Helps and Hinders Young Children’s Feature Learning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Kalish ◽  
Nigel Noll
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Feature Learning ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Diagnostic Feature ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Prediction Task ◽  
Feature Correlation ◽  
The Future

Existing research suggests that adults and older children experience a tradeoff where instruction and feedback help them solve a problem efficiently, but lead them to ignore currently irrelevant information that might be useful in the future. It is unclear whether young children experience the same tradeoff. Eighty-seven children (ages five- to eight-years) and 42 adults participated in supervised feature prediction tasks either with or without an instructional hint. Follow-up tasks assessed learning of feature correlations and feature frequencies. Younger children tended to learn frequencies of both relevant and irrelevant features without instruction, but not the diagnostic feature correlation needed for the prediction task. With instruction, younger children did learn the diagnostic feature correlation, but then failed to learn the frequencies of irrelevant features. Instruction helped older children learn the correlation without limiting attention to frequencies. Adults learned the diagnostic correlation even without instruction, but with instruction no longer learned about irrelevant frequencies. These results indicate that young children do show some costs of learning with instruction characteristic of older children and adults. However, they also receive some of the benefits. The current study illustrates just what those tradeoffs might be, and how they might change over development.

scholarly journals Multilab Direct Replication of Flavell, Beach, and Chinsky (1966): Spontaneous Verbal Rehearsal in a Memory Task as a Function of Age

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 251524592110181
Author(s):  
Emily M. Elliott ◽  
Candice C. Morey ◽  
Angela M. AuBuchon ◽  
Nelson Cowan ◽  
Chris Jarrold ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Continuous Increase ◽  
Verbal Rehearsal ◽  
Picture Memory ◽  
Spontaneous Production

Work by Flavell, Beach, and Chinsky indicated a change in the spontaneous production of overt verbalization behaviors when comparing young children (age 5) with older children (age 10). Despite the critical role that this evidence of a change in verbalization behaviors plays in modern theories of cognitive development and working memory, there has been only one other published near replication of this work. In this Registered Replication Report, we relied on researchers from 17 labs who contributed their results to a larger and more comprehensive sample of children. We assessed memory performance and the presence or absence of verbalization behaviors of young children at different ages and determined that the original pattern of findings was largely upheld: Older children were more likely to verbalize, and their memory spans improved. We confirmed that 5- and 6-year-old children who verbalized recalled more than children who did not verbalize. However, unlike Flavell et al., substantial proportions of our 5- and 6-year-old samples overtly verbalized at least sometimes during the picture memory task. In addition, continuous increase in overt verbalization from 7 to 10 years old was not consistently evident in our samples. These robust findings should be weighed when considering theories of cognitive development, particularly theories concerning when verbal rehearsal emerges and relations between speech and memory.

Age Effects in the Processing of Typical and Distinctive Faces

1995 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 447-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert A. Johnston ◽  
Hadyn D. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Recognition Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Age Effects ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Cognitive Architectures ◽  
Differential Processing ◽  
Four Dimensions ◽  
Adults And Children

Two experiments exploring the differential processing of distinctive and typical faces by adults and children are reported. Experiment 1 employed a recognition memory task. On three out of four dimensions of measurement, children of 5 years of age did not show an advantage for distinctive faces, whereas older children and adults did. In Experiment 2, however, subjects of all ages classified typical faces faster than distinctive ones in a face/non-face decision task: the 5-year-olds performed exactly as did adults and older children. The different patterns in performance between these two tasks are discussed in relation to possible cognitive architectures for the way young children represent faces in memory. Specifically, we examine two alternative architectures proposed by Ellis (1992) as precursors for Valentine's (1991a) multidimensional adult face-space and discuss whether implementations of these spaces should be based on a norm-based or an exemplar-based framework.

Do Monkeys and Young Children Understand Exclusive “Or” Relations? A Commentary on Ferrigno et al. (2021)

2021 ◽  
pp. 095679762110246
Author(s):  
Shalini Gautam ◽  
Thomas Suddendorf ◽  
Jonathan Redshaw
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Response Pattern ◽  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Experimental Task ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Disjunctive Syllogism ◽  
Identical Response ◽  
Exclusive Or

Ferrigno et al. (2021) claim to provide evidence that monkeys can reason through the disjunctive syllogism (given A or B, not A, therefore B) and conclude that monkeys therefore understand logical “or” relations. Yet their data fail to provide evidence that the baboons they tested understood the exclusive “or” relations in the experimental task. For two mutually exclusive possibilities—A or B—the monkeys appeared to infer that B was true when A was shown to be false, but they failed to infer that B was false when A was shown to be true. In our own research, we recently found an identical response pattern in 2.5- to 4-year-old children, whereas 5-year-olds demonstrated that they could make both inferences. The monkeys’ and younger children’s responses are instead consistent with an incorrect understanding of A and B as having an inclusive “or” relation. Only the older children provided compelling evidence of representing the exclusive “or” relation between A and B.

Why are Mongolian Infants Treated Like ‘Kings’?

Inner Asia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 273-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aude Michelet
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Infants And Toddlers ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Privileged Status ◽  
Daily Interactions ◽  
Children In The Middle

As infants and toddlers, Mongolian children grow up as the centre of attention in their home, promptly taken care of and tenderly indulged. In this paper, I seek to explain why young children in the middle Gobi enjoy a privileged status, in contrast with their status as older children. I show how the physical, emotional and moral peculiarities of infants’ and toddlers’ personhood converge in conferring upon them ‘kingly’ prerogatives. I then examine what leads to their loss of privileges, as they grow older. Unlike most studies examining the changes of status that children undergo, I do not focus on rites de passage, but analyse daily interactions. The loss of young children’s privileges occurs according to different timelines for each aspect of their personhood, while the prerogatives enjoyed by young children also reoccur at different periods in life, thus inviting us to reconsider what is meant by infancy as a discrete stage.

scholarly journals Selective trust in young children and distracted adults: halo-effects outweigh rational choices

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonas Hermes ◽  
Franziska Brugger ◽  
hannes rakoczy ◽  
Tanya Behne
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Cognitive Strategies ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Selective Trust ◽  
Rational Choices ◽  
Cognitive Foundations ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual

Research has shown that young children are selective in whom they trust, for example, learning selectively from the previously more reliable sources. To explain what cognitive foundations this capacity may build upon, is has recently been proposed that children recruit different kinds of cognitive strategies. These may include, on the one hand, simple heuristics such as favoring the overall better protagonist or those who score high on a salient, accessible characteristic, and, on the other hand, more systematic and cognitively effortful strategies, e.g., taking into account the individual properties of a protagonist. Based on such dual-process account, the present studies investigated the prediction that the more systematic processes require cognitive resources and develop with age. Children and adults were familiarized with two protagonists: The strong-and-shy protagonist scored high on a highly accessible trait (strength), whereas the weak-and-extraverted protagonist scored high on a less accessible trait (extraversion). In test trials, participants chose between these two protagonists for strength- and extraversion-related tasks. The results were consistent with the prediction of the dual-process account: Older children, and adults under normal conditions, showed a pattern of systematic reasoning, selecting the protagonists with the relevant trait for a given task. Yet, younger children, and adults whose cognitive capacities were burdened with a secondary task, showed a pattern of heuristic reasoning, selecting the strong-and-shy protagonist not only in the strength tasks but often also in the extraversion tasks. This is the first piece of direct evidence for the applicability of a dual-process account on selective trust.

scholarly journals Understanding the effects of language revitalization workshops using long-format speech environment recordings

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 213
Author(s):  
Julia Nee
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Language Revitalization ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Teaching Language ◽  
Methodological Challenges

Long-format speech environment (LFSE) recordings are increasingly used to understand language acquisition among young children (Casillas & Cristia 2019). But in language revitalization, older children are sometimes the largest demographic acquiring a language. In Teotitlán del Valle, Mexico, older children have participated in Zapotec language revitalization workshops since 2017. To better understand how these children use language, and to probe whether the language workshops impact language use, I invited learners to collect LFSE recordings. This study addresses two main questions: (1) what methodological challenges emerge when children ages 6-12 collect LFSE data?; and (2) what do the data suggest about the effects of the Zapotec workshops? I argue that, while creating LFSE recordings with older children presents methodological challenges, the results are useful in highlighting the importance of not only teaching language skills, but of creating spaces where learners are comfortable using the Zapotec language.

scholarly journals Examining Factors Influencing the Viability of Automatic Acoustic Analysis of Child Speech

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (10) ◽  
pp. 2487-2501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thea Knowles ◽  
Meghan Clayards ◽  
Morgan Sonderegger
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Acoustic Analysis ◽  
Center Of Gravity ◽  
Training Data ◽  
Alignment Accuracy ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Acoustic Characteristics ◽  
Phonetic Transcription ◽  
Very Young Children ◽  
Child Speech

Purpose Heterogeneous child speech was force-aligned to investigate whether (a) manipulating specific parameters could improve alignment accuracy and (b) forced alignment could be used to replicate published results on acoustic characteristics of /s/ production by children. Method In Part 1, child speech from 2 corpora was force-aligned with a trainable aligner (Prosodylab-Aligner) under different conditions that systematically manipulated input training data and the type of transcription used. Alignment accuracy was determined by comparing hand and automatic alignments as to how often they overlapped (%-Match) and absolute differences in duration and boundary placements. Using mixed-effects regression, accuracy was modeled as a function of alignment conditions, as well as segment and child age. In Part 2, forced alignments derived from a subset of the alignment conditions in Part 1 were used to extract spectral center of gravity of /s/ productions from young children. These findings were compared to published results that used manual alignments of the same data. Results Overall, the results of Part 1 demonstrated that using training data more similar to the data to be aligned as well as phonetic transcription led to improvements in alignment accuracy. Speech from older children was aligned more accurately than younger children. In Part 2, /s/ center of gravity extracted from force-aligned segments was found to diverge in the speech of male and female children, replicating the pattern found in previous work using manually aligned segments. This was true even for the least accurate forced alignment method. Conclusions Alignment accuracy of child speech can be improved by using more specific training and transcription. However, poor alignment accuracy was not found to impede acoustic analysis of /s/ produced by even very young children. Thus, forced alignment presents a useful tool for the analysis of child speech. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7070105

scholarly journals The Development of Causal Reasoning

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Muentener ◽  
Elizabeth Bonawitz
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Causal Reasoning ◽  
Causal Structure ◽  
Statistical Evidence ◽  
Causal Learning ◽  
Causal Relationships ◽  
Older Children ◽  
Very Young Children ◽  
The World

Research on the development of causal reasoning has broadly focused on accomplishing two goals: understanding the origins of causal reasoning, and examining how causal reasoning changes with development. This chapter reviews evidence and theory that aim to fulfill both of these objectives. In the first section, it focuses on the research that explores the possible precedents for recognizing causal events in the world, reviewing evidence for three distinct mechanisms in early causal reasoning: physical launching events, agents and their actions, and covariation information. The second portion of the chapter examines the question of how older children learn about specific causal relationships. It focuses on the role of patterns of statistical evidence in guiding learning about causal structure, suggesting that even very young children leverage strong inductive biases with patterns of data to inform their inferences about causal events, and discussing ways in which children’s spontaneous play supports causal learning.

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