Browsing by Subject "Preschoolers"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Open Access
Age 4 transitions: Reflection as a domain-general development for explicit reasoning
(Elsevier Ltd, 2021-07) Allen, Jedediah W. P.; Çelik, Bartuğ; Bichard, M. H.
The literature provides many examples of important developments across different social and cognitive domains at around age 4. Based on an action-based approach to cognition - interactivism - we argue that the changes across different domains can be explained by the development of a domain-general cognitive enabling: reflection. The interactivist model’s claim about reflection was empirically supported on the basis of a novel object-reasoning task called Leaning Blocks (LB) developed by Allen and Bickhard (2018). In the current study, there were three aims. First, to replicate the age 4 shift on the LB task in a non-western sample. Second, to explore the LB task’s relations with Executive Functioning skills (working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control) in order to test alternative interpretations of performance on LB. Third, to diversify the measurement of reflective reasoning with two new tasks based on Piaget’s categorization of mental imagery. The results showed a replication of Allen and Bickhard’s 2018 findings on the LB task and failed to show any relations with the EF measures after controlling for age. One of the new reflection tasks (Candy Monster) showed both the age 4 transition and a correlation with LB (before-and-after controlling for age and the EF measures). Overall, as in Allen and Bickhard (2018) the current study’s results support the interactivist model’s claim that the development of reflection is responsible for the transitions in performance across domains in a “stage-like” fashion.
Open Access
"And they had a big, big, very long fight:" The development of evaluative language in preschoolers' oral fictional stories told in a peer-group context
(Cambridge University Press, 2021-04) Nicolopoulou, Ageliki; Ilgaz, Hande; Shiro, Marta; Hsin, Lisa B.
This study examined the development of evaluative language in preschoolers' oral fictional narratives using a storytelling/story-acting practice where children told stories to and for their friends. Evaluative language orients the audience to the teller's cognitive and emotional engagement with a story's events and characters, and we hypothesized that this STSA context might yield new information about the early development of this language, prior to elementary school. We analyzed 60 stories: the first and last story told by 10 children in each of three preschool classrooms (3-, 4-, and 5-year-old classes) that used STSA throughout the school year. Stories were coded for evaluative expressions and evidential expressions. Five-year-olds used significantly more evaluative language than did 3-year-olds, and children at all ages used significantly more evaluative language at the end than at the beginning of the year. The number of stories told throughout the year explained unique variance in children's evaluative language growth.
Open Access
Cultural affordances: Does model reliability affect over-imitation in preschoolers
(Elsevier Ltd, 2021-03) Jedediah W.P., Allen; Sümer, Cansu; Ilgaz, Hande
One general perspective on why children over-imitate is that they are learning about the normatively correct way of doing things. If correct, then characteristics of the demonstrator should be relevant. Accordingly, the current study aimed to investigate how the reliability of an adult model influences children’s selectivity of what to imitate in an over-imitation situation (i.e., when some of the actions are causally irrelevant). Seventy-eight preschoolers between 3 and 6 years of age participated at school or in the lab on four tasks. A canonical trust paradigm was used to manipulate model reliability in terms of past accuracy. Children then watched either the reliable or unreliable model open a transparent box using the same relevant and irrelevant actions. In addition, children completed a standard ToM battery. Results indicated that children were more likely to over-imitate from a demonstration given by the reliable versus unreliable model. Children’s ToM abilities were not related to their over-imitation behavior but showed some relations to their trust performance. Overall, the results provide support for a social situational approach to over-imitation that fits most closely with the norm learning perspective.
Open Access
How to help: can more active behavioral measures help transcend the infant false-belief debate?
(Elsevier Ltd, 2015) Allen, J. W. P.
The use of looking time procedures for the claim that infants understand other's false-beliefs has drawn criticism. In response, Buttelmann, Carpenter, and Tomasello (2009) have argued for the use of a more active behavioral measure involving children's willingness to help others. However, the current study challenges Buttelmann et al.’s response on both theoretical and methodological grounds. Theoretically, Buttelmann et al. take a mindreading framework for granted and are thus committed to the same type of “rich” interpretations that have accompanied infant looking procedures more broadly. Methodologically, the current study challenges Buttelmann et al.’s interpretation that children were using the adult's false-belief to determine how to help in this paradigm. To test our alternative perspective, mentalistic and non-mentalistic interpretations of preschooler's helping behavior were compared. In the original study, the adult's false-belief was conflated with the playing of a trick. When these two factors were separated, children's helping behavior was not consistent with the adult's false-belief. Second, when the situation was characterized in terms of a hiding scenario (instead of playing a trick), older children altered their helping behavior accordingly. Together, these results provided evidence that children in the active-helping paradigm did not use the adult's false-belief to determine how to help and that the broader social situation is an important variable for understanding other's actions. In conclusion, the use of more active behavioral measures alone does not resolve the controversy that has played out with respect to infant looking procedures. Instead, any adequate methodological modifications must be accompanied by theoretical considerations as well.
Open Access
Stage fright: internal reflection as a domain general enabling constraint on the emergence of explicit thought
(Elsevier, 2018) Allen, Jedediah W.P.; Bickhard, M. H.
It has become increasingly clear over the last half century that there are multiple importantchanges in children’s abilities taking place at around age 4. These changes span social, emotional,and cognitive domains. While some researchers have argued that a domain-general developmentexplains some of the changes, such a position is a minority view. In the current article, weprovide some evidence for the development of an age 4 domain-general enabling constraint onchildren’s ability to reflect. In turn, the development of reflection is argued to enable the tran-sitions that we see within and across developmental domains. The model of reflection beingoffered is part of a broader action-based model of cognition and mind–interactivism (Bickhard,1973, 1978, 2009a,b). The empirical part of the article presents a new object reasoning task. Thistask was derived from theoretical constraints on the interactivist models of knowing and re-flection. Results indicated that most children responded to the task incorrectly until age 4 whichwas interpreted as evidence that they lacked the ability to explicitly reason about relations be-tween objects. Correlations between our new task and standard false-belief tasks were explored.Collectively, these results provide empirical support for the claim that children undergo a do-main-general development in their ability for epistemic reflection at around age 4
Open Access
Who peeks: cognitive, emotional, behavioral, socialization, and child correlates of preschoolers’ resistance to temptation
(Taylor & Francis, 2020) Allen, Jedediah W. P.; Lewis, M.
Research over several decades has demonstrated that children’s ability to wait and delay immediate gratification in preschool is related to a multitude of developmental outcomes throughout childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood. However, less research has focused on concurrent abilities, characteristics, and contexts related to the waiting behaviour itself. This study seeks to explore some of the cognitive, emotional, behavioural, and socialization correlates of an at-risk (poor inner city) group of preschoolers’ ability to wait. The study used a resistance to temptation paradigm in which children were instructed not to peek at a ‘forbidden toy’ while left alone. As predicted, 4-year-olds’ (M = 4.5; SD = 1.2 months) general IQ and emotion knowledge were related to their delay in peeking, with longer delays related to higher scores. Results also indicated an effect of gender such that girls waited longer than boys. Contrary to expectations, there were no effects related to harsh parenting practices or to general environmental risk. Of all the variables investigated, emotion knowledge seemed to be the most important.