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Stahl AE, Kibbe MM. Great expectations: The construct validity of the violation‐of‐expectation method for studying infant cognition. INFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT 2022. [DOI: 10.1002/icd.2359] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Aimee E. Stahl
- Department of Psychology The College of New Jersey Ewing New Jersey USA
| | - Melissa M. Kibbe
- Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Center for Systems Neuroscience Boston University Boston Massachusetts USA
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2
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Bremner JG, Slater A, Mason U, Spring J, Rees A, Tham DSY, Johnson SP. Eye tracking provides no evidence that young infants understand path obstruction. Infant Behav Dev 2021; 65:101659. [PMID: 34749118 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101659] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2021] [Revised: 10/20/2021] [Accepted: 10/20/2021] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
In two experiments with 47 4-month-olds, we investigated attention to key aspects of events in which an object moved along a partly occluded path that contained an obstruction. Infants were familiarized with a ball rolling behind an occluder to be revealed resting on an end wall, and on test trials an obstruction wall was placed in the ball's path. In Experiment 1, we did not find longer looking when the object appeared in an impossible location beyond the obstruction, and infants did not selectively fixate the object in this location. In Experiment 2, after rolling one or two balls, we measured infants' fixations of a two-object outcome with one ball in a novel but possible resting position and the other in a familiar but impossible location beyond the obstruction. Infants looked longer at the ball in the possible but novel location, likely reflecting a looking preference for location novelty. Thus we obtained no evidence that infants reasoned about obstruction and identified a violation on that basis.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Jo Spring
- Lancaster University, United Kingdom
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3
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Meng X, Nakawake Y, Hashiya K, Burdett E, Jong J, Whitehouse H. Preverbal infants expect agents exhibiting counterintuitive capacities to gain access to contested resources. Sci Rep 2021; 11:10884. [PMID: 34035341 PMCID: PMC8149634 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-89821-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2021] [Accepted: 04/28/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Claims to supernatural power have been used as a basis for authority in a wide range of societies, but little is known about developmental origins of the link between supernatural power and worldly authority. Here, we show that 12- to 16-month-old infants expect agents exhibiting counterintuitive capacities to win out in a two-way standoff over a contested resource. Infants watched two agents gain a reward using either physically intuitive or physically counterintuitive methods, the latter involving simple forms of levitation or teleportation. Infants looked longer, indicating surprise, when the physically intuitive agent subsequently outcompeted a physically counterintuitive agent in securing a reward. Control experiments indicated that infants’ expectations were not simply motived by the efficiency of agents in pursuing their goals, but specifically the deployment of counterintuitive capacities. This suggests that the link between supernatural power and worldly authority has early origins in development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xianwei Meng
- Faculty of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. .,Graduate School of Human Sciences, Osaka University, Suita, Japan. .,Center for Baby Science, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan.
| | - Yo Nakawake
- Faculty of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan. .,School of Economics and Management, Kochi University of Technology, Kochi, Japan. .,Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
| | - Kazuhide Hashiya
- Faculty of Human-Environment Studies, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan
| | - Emily Burdett
- Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,Belief, Brain and Behaviour, Coventry University, Coventry, UK.,School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
| | - Jonathan Jong
- Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.,Belief, Brain and Behaviour, Coventry University, Coventry, UK
| | - Harvey Whitehouse
- Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
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4
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Abstract
Infants show strikingly different reactions to incongruity: looking (Baillargeon, 1998) or smiling (Mireault & Reddy, 2016). The former occurs in response to magical events and the latter to humorous events. We argue that these reactions depend largely on the respective experimental methodologies employed, including the popular Violation of Expectation (VOE) paradigm. Although both types of studies involve infants' reactions to incongruity, their literatures have yet to confront each other and researchers in each domain are drawing strikingly different conclusions regarding infants' understanding of the world. Here, we argue that infants are sensitive to and constrained by several contextual differences in the methodologies employed by incongruity researchers that afford one or the other reaction. We apply De Jaegher & Di Paolo's (2007) Participatory Sense Making framework to further understand what infants are sensitive to in these paradigms. Understanding infants' reactions to incongruity (i.e., VOE) is necessary to clear up claims regarding the sophisticatication of their knowledge of physical and social phenomena. Attention to several simple methodological details is recommended.
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5
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Bremner G, Dunn K. What’s in a Look? How Can We Best Measure Infants’ Response to Incongruity? Hum Dev 2020. [DOI: 10.1159/000510579] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
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6
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Elsner C, Wertz AE. The seeds of social learning: Infants exhibit more social looking for plants than other object types. Cognition 2019; 183:244-255. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.09.016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2016] [Revised: 09/25/2018] [Accepted: 09/30/2018] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
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7
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Dunn K, Bremner JG. Investigating looking and social looking measures as an index of infant violation of expectation. Dev Sci 2017; 20:e12452. [PMID: 27781330 PMCID: PMC5697609 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12452] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2015] [Accepted: 04/08/2016] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Accumulated looking time has been widely used to index violation of expectation (VoE) response in young infants. But there is controversy concerning the validity of this measure, with some interpreting infant looking behaviour in terms of perceptual preferences (Cohen & Marks, ; Haith, ). The current study aimed to compare the use of looking time with a recently used measure of social looking (Walden et al., ) in distinguishing between 6-month-old infants' response to novelty/familiarity and a condition in which the object was covertly switched for a different object. Following habituation, infants showed more social looking in response to the object-switch condition than the novel object change, whereas the more commonly used accumulated looking time measure did not distinguish between the two, showing an increase for both. Thus, social looking is a more valid measure of infant VoE than looking time.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kirsty Dunn
- Department of PsychologyLancaster UniversityUK
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8
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Mireault GC, Crockenberg SC, Heilman K, Sparrow JE, Cousineau K, Rainville B. Social, cognitive, and physiological aspects of humour perception from 4 to 8 months: Two longitudinal studies. BRITISH JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 2017; 36:98-109. [PMID: 28944500 DOI: 10.1111/bjdp.12216] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/27/2017] [Revised: 07/09/2017] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Infants laugh by 4 months, but whether they understand humour based on social or cognitive factors is unclear. We conducted two longitudinal studies of 4-, 6-, and 8-month-olds (N = 60), and 5-, 6-, and 7-month-olds (N = 53) to pinpoint the onset of independent humour perception and determine when social and cognitive factors are most salient. Infants were shown six events in randomized repeated-measures designs: two ordinary events and two absurd iterations of those events, with parents' affect manipulated (laugh or neutral) during the latter. Four-month-olds did not smile/laugh more at absurd events, but exhibited a significant heart rate deceleration. Five-month-olds independently appraised absurd events as humorous, smiling/laughing despite their parents' neutrality. Parent laughter did not influence infants of any age to smile more, but captured 4-month-olds' attention. Results suggest that 4-month-olds laugh in response to social cues, while 5-month-olds' can laugh in response to cognitive features. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? By 6 months, infants can independently appraise absurd events as humorous, but it is not known whether younger infants can. What does this study add? This study replicated the finding on younger infants, showing that 5-month-olds are similarly capable of independent humour appraisal. These studies also found that although 4-month-olds do not respond to absurd events with positive affect, they do exhibit a heart rate decrease that is unrelated to looking. These studies help delineate when social and cognitive factors contribute to infant humour perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gina C Mireault
- Department of Behavioral Sciences, Johnson State College, Johnson, Vermont, USA
| | | | - Keri Heilman
- University of North Carolina Medical School, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
| | - John E Sparrow
- University of New Hampshire, Manchester, New Hampshire, USA
| | - Kassandra Cousineau
- Department of Behavioral Sciences, Johnson State College, Johnson, Vermont, USA
| | - Brady Rainville
- Department of Behavioral Sciences, Johnson State College, Johnson, Vermont, USA
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Bremner JG, Slater AM, Hayes RA, Mason UC, Murphy C, Spring J, Draper L, Gaskell D, Johnson SP. Young infants' visual fixation patterns in addition and subtraction tasks support an object tracking account. J Exp Child Psychol 2017; 162:199-208. [PMID: 28618393 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.05.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2016] [Revised: 05/11/2017] [Accepted: 05/14/2017] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Investigating infants' numerical ability is crucial to identifying the developmental origins of numeracy. Wynn (1992) claimed that 5-month-old infants understand addition and subtraction as indicated by longer looking at outcomes that violate numerical operations (i.e., 1+1=1 and 2-1=2). However, Wynn's claim was contentious, with others suggesting that her results might reflect a familiarity preference for the initial array or that they could be explained in terms of object tracking. To cast light on this controversy, Wynn's conditions were replicated with conventional looking time supplemented with eye-tracker data. In the incorrect outcome of 2 in a subtraction event (2-1=2), infants looked selectively at the incorrectly present object, a finding that is not predicted by an initial array preference account or a symbolic numerical account but that is consistent with a perceptual object tracking account. It appears that young infants can track at least one object over occlusion, and this may form the precursor of numerical ability.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Uschi C Mason
- Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4YW, UK
| | | | - Jo Spring
- Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4YW, UK
| | | | - David Gaskell
- Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4YW, UK
| | - Scott P Johnson
- University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
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Stahl AE, Feigenson L. Expectancy violations promote learning in young children. Cognition 2017; 163:1-14. [PMID: 28254617 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.02.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 35] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/11/2016] [Revised: 02/08/2017] [Accepted: 02/15/2017] [Indexed: 01/29/2023]
Abstract
Children, including infants, have expectations about the world around them, and produce reliable responses when these expectations are violated. However, little is known about how such expectancy violations affect subsequent cognition. Here we tested the hypothesis that violations of expectation enhance children's learning. In four experiments we compared 3- to 6-year-old children's ability to learn novel words in situations that defied versus accorded with their core knowledge of object behavior. In Experiments 1 and 2 we taught children novel words following one of two types of events. One event violated expectations about the spatiotemporal or featural properties of objects (e.g., an object appeared to magically change locations). The other event was almost identical, but did not violate expectations (e.g., an object was visibly moved from one location to another). In both experiments we found that children robustly learned when taught after the surprising event, but not following the expected event. In Experiment 3 we ruled out two alternative explanations for our results. Finally, in Experiment 4, we asked whether surprise affects children's learning in a targeted or a diffuse way. We found that surprise only enhanced children's learning about the entity that had behaved surprisingly, and not about unrelated objects. Together, these experiments show that core knowledge - and violations of expectations generated by core knowledge - shapes new learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aimee E Stahl
- The College of New Jersey, 2000 Pennington Road, Ewing, NJ 08628, United States.
| | - Lisa Feigenson
- Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, United States.
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11
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Hirsh-Pasek K, Zosh JM, Golinkoff RM, Gray JH, Robb MB, Kaufman J. Putting Education in “Educational” Apps. Psychol Sci Public Interest 2015; 16:3-34. [DOI: 10.1177/1529100615569721] [Citation(s) in RCA: 467] [Impact Index Per Article: 51.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Children are in the midst of a vast, unplanned experiment, surrounded by digital technologies that were not available but 5 years ago. At the apex of this boom is the introduction of applications (“apps”) for tablets and smartphones. However, there is simply not the time, money, or resources available to evaluate each app as it enters the market. Thus, “educational” apps—the number of which, as of January 2015, stood at 80,000 in Apple’s App Store (Apple, 2015)—are largely unregulated and untested. This article offers a way to define the potential educational impact of current and future apps. We build upon decades of work on the Science of Learning, which has examined how children learn best. From this work, we abstract a set of principles for two ultimate goals. First, we aim to guide researchers, educators, and designers in evidence-based app development. Second, by creating an evidence-based guide, we hope to set a new standard for evaluating and selecting the most effective existing children’s apps. In short, we will show how the design and use of educational apps aligns with known processes of children’s learning and development and offer a framework that can be used by parents and designers alike. Apps designed to promote active, engaged, meaningful, and socially interactive learning—four “pillars” of learning—within the context of a supported learning goal are considered educational.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Jennifer M. Zosh
- Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State University, Brandywine
| | | | | | - Michael B. Robb
- Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College
| | - Jordy Kaufman
- Brain and Psychological Sciences Research Centre, Swinburne University of Technology
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12
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Mireault GC, Crockenberg SC, Sparrow JE, Pettinato CA, Woodard KC, Malzac K. Social looking, social referencing and humor perception in 6- and-12-month-old infants. Infant Behav Dev 2014; 37:536-45. [PMID: 25061893 PMCID: PMC4262602 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.06.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2013] [Revised: 04/17/2014] [Accepted: 06/02/2014] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Social referencing refers to infants' use of caregivers as emotional referents in ambiguous situations (Walden, 1993). Studies of social referencing typically require ambulation, thereby over-looking younger, non-ambulatory infants (i.e., ≤8-months) and resulting in a widespread assumption that young infants do not employ this strategy. Using a novel approach that does not require mobility, we found that when parents provided unsolicited affective cues during an ambiguous-absurd (i.e., humorous) event, 6-month-olds employ one component of social referencing, social looking Additionally, 6-month-olds who did not laugh at the event were significantly more likely to look toward parents than their counterparts who found the event funny. Sequential analyses revealed that, following a reference to a smiling parent, 6-month olds were more likely to smile at the parent, but by 12 months were more likely to smile at the event suggesting that older infants are influenced by parental affect in humorous situations. The developmental implications of these findings are discussed, as well as the usefulness of studying humor for understanding important developmental phenomena.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - John E Sparrow
- University of New Hampshire-Manchester, Manchester, NH, United States
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13
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Martin NG, Maza L, McGrath SJ, Phelps AE. An examination of referential and affect specificity with five emotions in infancy. Infant Behav Dev 2014; 37:286-97. [PMID: 24813588 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.04.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2013] [Revised: 01/24/2014] [Accepted: 04/08/2014] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Referential specificity and affect specificity were examined in 12- to 14-month-olds (n=20), and 16- to 18-month-olds (n=20). Infants were presented with a televised social referencing paradigm involving an actress who emoted a simple descriptive message to one of two objects appearing on the video. The actress altered her affective message using a neutral baseline first, followed by 5 discrete emotions (anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise). Infants were given 30s to interact with the objects after watching the affective episode. Older infants demonstrated referential and affect specificity, as evidenced by their differential treatment of the target and distracter toy in response to messages of anger, fear, surprise, and happiness. In contrast, the younger infants did not show evidence of either referential or affect specificity, as evidenced by the lack of differentiation in their treatment of the target and distracter toy in response to positive and negative emotional messages across all emotional episodes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicole G Martin
- Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA 30144, United States.
| | - Lindey Maza
- Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA 30144, United States
| | | | - Amber E Phelps
- Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA 30144, United States
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14
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Kim G, Kwak K. Uncertainty matters: impact of stimulus ambiguity on infant social referencing. INFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT 2010. [DOI: 10.1002/icd.708] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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15
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Abstract
The balance between the preservation of early cognitive functions and serious transformations on these functions shifts across time. Piaget's writings, which favored transformations, are being replaced by writings that emphasize continuities between select cognitive functions of infants and older children. The claim that young infants possess elements present in the older child's concepts of number, physical impossibility, and object permanence is vulnerable to criticism because the inferences are based primarily on the single measure of change in looking time. It is suggested that investigators use unique constructs to describe phenomena observed in young infants that appear, on the surface, to resemble the psychological competences observed during later developmental stages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jerome Kagan
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
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16
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Abstract
Human teaching, a highly specialized form of cooperative information transmission, depends not only on the presence of benevolent communicators in the environment, but also on the preparedness of the students to learn from communication when it is addressed to them. We tested whether 9-month-old human infants can distinguish between communicative and noncommunicative social contexts and whether they retain qualitatively different information about novel objects in these contexts. We found that in a communicative context, infants devoted their limited memory resources to encoding the identity of novel objects at the expense of encoding their location, which is preferentially retained in noncommunicative contexts. We propose that infants' sensitivity to, and interpretation of, the social cues distinguishing infant-directed communication events represent important mechanisms of social learning by which others can help determine what information even preverbal human observers retain in memory.
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