The kids are bored: Trait boredom in early childhood and links to self-regulation, coping strategies, and parent-child interactions

Boredom is a negative emotion that most people experience on occasion. However, some people experience boredom more or are unable to tolerate it, which is called trait boredom. Trait boredom has been well-studied in adolescence and adulthood, but little is known about trait boredom in childhood. The main goal of this study was to measure trait boredom in 4- to 6-year-olds (N = 130) and to test whether it relates to self-regulatory processes in a similar fashion that has been observed in adults and identify strategies children use to cope with boredom. We found boredom in childhood was related to self-regulatory processes in a similar fashion as it does in adults, and most children used social stimulation strategies (e.g., asking to play with a parent) or behavioral strategies (e.g., playing with toys) to cope with boredom. The findings are discussed within the context of prevention and the emotion regulation and boredom literature.

Older and Wiser? Age-related Change in State and Trait Boredom During Adolescence and Associations with Neural Correlates of Self-regulation

Purpose

The purpose of the current study was to examine age-related change in state and trait boredom in 12- to 17-year-old adolescents and test whether neurophysiological correlates of self-regulation relate to boredom during adolescence in the same way that has been found in adults.

Methods

Eighty-nine 12- to 17-year-old adolescents participated. Three types of trait boredom were measured: boredom proneness, leisure boredom, and boredom susceptibility. State boredom was also measured after completing a boredom induction task while EEG was recorded. Slopes in frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) were extracted from the EEG as a measure of approach (leftward shifts) or avoidance (rightward shifts).

Results

A curvilinear relationship between age and boredom proneness and age and boredom susceptibility was observed, indicating trait boredom rises and falls across adolescence. State boredom, by contrast, increased linearly with age. Slopes in FAA inversely related only to boredom proneness, indicating higher levels of this type of trait boredom related to an avoidant response as a state of boredom ensues.

Conclusion

We suggest the rise and fall of trait boredom across adolescence may be due to changes in person-environment fit during middle adolescence, whereas state boredom may increase with age due to improvements in attentional processes that mundane lab tasks do not satisfactorily engage. The link between FAA and only one type of trait boredom indicates self-regulatory processes and boredom are not yet strongly coupled in adolescence. Implications for prevention of negative behavioral health outcomes associated with high levels of trait boredom are discussed.

Predicting individual differences in behavioral activation and behavioral inhibition from functional networks in the resting EEG

The behavioral activation system (BAS) and behavioral inhibition system (BIS) are thought to underly affective dispositions and self-regulatory processes. The BAS is sensitive to reward and involved in approach behaviors, and the BIS is sensitive to punishment and involved in avoidance behaviors. Trait BAS and BIS relate to distinct behavioral profiles and neural activity, but little is known about how trait BAS and BIS relate to functional networks in EEG. We applied a data-driven method called connectome predictive modeling (CPM) to identify networks relating to trait BAS and BIS and tested whether the strength of those networks predicted trait BAS and BIS in novel subjects using a leave-one-out cross-validation procedure. Adult participants (N = 107) completed a resting state task with eyes closed and eyes open, and trait BAS and BIS were measured via Carver and White's (1994) BIS and BAS scales. We hypothesized distinct positive (more synchronization) and negative (less synchronization) networks would relate to trait BAS and BIS. For eyes closed, we identified two negative networks, one in theta and one in alpha predicted BIS. We identified three positive networks, one in theta and one in beta predicted Fun Seeking and one in theta predicted Drive. For eyes open, negative theta and alpha networks predicted BIS, a positive theta network predicted Fun Seeking, and a negative gamma network predicted mean BAS. Visualization of the networks are presented. Discussion centers on the observed networks and how to advance application of CPM to EEG, including with clinical implications.

Difficulties with Emotion Regulation during COVID-19 and Associations with Boredom in College Students

COVID-19 related restrictions resulted in a significant lifestyle change for many young adults in the United States. Although boredom and emotional self-regulation are clearly connected in empirical research, the question remains of what this association looks like in unique circumstances, such as early in COVID-19 pandemic at the height of restrictions. The purpose of the current study is to identify the association between boredom proneness and emotion regulation in college students during the COVID-19 pandemic. College students who completed a Boredom Coping Survey between October and December 2019 (n = 481) were recruited for a follow-up COVID-19 Boredom Survey in April 2020. Data from this sub-sample (n = 58) were used in a hierarchical regression predicting the role of boredom proneness on COVID-19 pandemic emotion regulation difficulties while controlling for age, sex, and COVID-19 related lifestyle changes. Findings indicated higher levels of emotion regulation difficulties were associated with higher levels of boredom proneness above and beyond demographic variables and COVID-19 lifestyle changes. Results are in line with prior theory and research on the importance of the environment or situational factors to the experience of boredom.

Sound and Silence: The Effects of Environmental Conditions on State Boredom in an Online Study during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Boredom is a negative emotion commonly experienced in mundane situations. Boredom is thought to arise from a mismatch between individuals and their expectation for environmental stimulation. People attempt to reduce boredom by increasing the stimulation in their environment (e.g., turning on TV or music). Theories of boredom suggest external stimulation may cue the individual to expect more stimulation than the mundane task offers—thereby increasing boredom. Researchers adapted lab-based tasks to online during the COVID-19 pandemic, which allowed participants to set the study’s environmental conditions. Our method involved data collected online during the COVID-19 pandemic. We tested whether 137 college-age participants who reported being alone in a noisy room experienced more boredom after a mundane task than those who were alone in a quiet room. Results showed individuals in a noisier environment reported more boredom following a repetitive task than those in a quieter environment. Some people, high in trait boredom, experience boredom more frequently or cannot tolerate it. Our results revealed that the effects of environmental condition remained after controlling for the influence of trait boredom. In the discussion, we describe links to extant boredom research and implications for researchers collecting data online and individuals attempting to mitigate boredom.

Play with Mom: Insights into Regulatory Processes at Work during Baseline and Parent-infant Play

Frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) is a neural correlate of approach and avoidance motivational processes. This study examined the shift in FAA from baseline to play, associations to parent-reported regulatory abilities, and parent and infant behaviors during play. Infants exhibited greater left frontal alpha activity (more approach) during baseline relative to play. Shifts in FAA toward greater left frontal alpha activity (more approach) from baseline to play were associated with parent ratings of infants' regulatory behaviors and object exploration exhibited during play. These results highlight ongoing regulatory processes involved in positively valenced tasks typical in infants' daily life.

A Dynamical Reconceptualization of Executive-Function Development

Executive function plays a foundational role in everyday behaviors across the life span. The theoretical understanding of executive-function development, however, is still a work in progress. Doebel proposed that executive-function development reflects skills using control in the service of behavior-using mental content such as knowledge and beliefs to guide behavior in a context-specific fashion. This liberating view contrasts with modular views of executive function. This new view resembles some older dynamic-systems concepts that long ago proposed that behavior reflects the assembly of multiple pieces in context. We dig into this resemblance and evaluate what else dynamic-systems theory adds to the understanding of executive-function development. We describe core dynamic-systems concepts and apply them to executive function-as conceptualized by Doebel-and through this lens explain the multilevel nature of goal-directed behavior and how a capacity to behave in a goal-directed fashion across contexts emerges over development. We then describe a dynamic systems model of goal-directed behavior during childhood and, finally, address broader theoretical implications of dynamic-systems theory and propose new translational implications for fostering children's capacity to behave in a goal-directed fashion across everyday contexts.

It is all relative: Contextual influences on boredom and neural correlates of regulatory processes

Interest in the influences on and strategies to mitigate boredom has grown immensely. Boredom emerges in contexts in which people have difficulty paying attention, such as underchallenging relative to optimally challenging conditions. The current study probed contextual influences on peoples' experience of boredom by manipulating the order with which people performed easy and optimally challenging conditions of a task (N = 113). We measured frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) and theta/beta as neural correlates of self-regulatory and attentional control processes, respectively. Results showed self-reported boredom was higher in the easy condition when the optimal condition was completed before it. Similarly, participant's FAA shifted rightward from the first to the second task when the optimal condition was completed prior to the easy condition, indicating that self-regulatory processes were strongly engaged under these context-specific conditions. Theta/beta was lower during the easy relative to the optimal condition, regardless of the task order, indicating that maintaining attention in the easy condition was more difficult. No relations between perceptions of the task and neural correlates were observed. Exploratory analyses revealed higher levels of variability in FAA and theta/beta were associated with less enjoyment and more boredom, respectively. We speculate these observations reflect the less consistent engagement of self-regulatory and attentional control and, in turn, might play a role in peoples' subjective experience. We discuss the implications of our findings for our understanding of influences on and strategies to mitigate boredom, as well as how attentional and self-regulatory processes operate under conditions boredom typically emerges.

Dynamics of frontal alpha asymmetry in mother-infant dyads: Insights from the Still Face Paradigm

The parent-infant dynamic has a foundational role in emotion regulation development. Electroencephalography (EEG) hyperscanning from mother-infant dyads can provide an unprecedented window into inter-brain dynamics during the parent-infant exchange. This potential depends on the feasibility of hyperscanning with dyads in emotionally taxing contexts. We sought to demonstrate feasibility of hyperscanning from 10 mother-infant dyads during the Still Face Procedure (SFP). We measured frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) to elucidate ongoing regulatory dynamics and considered maternal caregiving quality as a window into dyads' history. Results showed dyads exhibited a rightward shift in FAA over the course of SFP, indicating growing negative emotionality and desire to withdraw. Results also showed growing variability in FAA for infants over the course of SFP, indicating less active emotional control as stress ensued. Variability was especially low for mothers during periods when asked to be emotionally unavailable, suggesting active control to match the task demands. Dyads with a more responsive mother exhibited higher (more left) FAA relative to dyads with a less responsive mother, which might reflect a more positive emotional experience overall. We raise important methodological and theoretical questions that hyperscanning during SFP can address, such as the developmental origins of trait-like self-regulatory dispositions.

Connecting the Dots: Finding Continuity Across Visuospatial Tasks and Development

The study of cognition and its development has long been partitioned into sub-domains, with different tasks designed to assess different constructs and for use during different developmental periods. A central challenge is to understand how a single cognitive system organizes itself across many contexts and developmental periods in which we study it. This article takes a step toward tackling this challenge through a theoretical review of simulations of a dynamic neural field (DNF) model of visuospatial cognitive development. The DNF model simulates basic neurocognitive processes of encoding, maintenance, and long-term memory formation that are coupled to different behavioral systems to generate behaviors required across different tasks used with different age groups. The model simulations reviewed here were initially focused on explaining performance in specific experimental conditions within a developmental period. This article brings to the forefront the larger theoretical goal to understand how a set of basic neurocognitive processes can underlie performance in a wide array of contexts. This review connects behavioral signatures and developmental phenomena from spatial cognition, infant visual exploration, and capacity limits in visual working memory into a single theoretical account of the development of basic visuospatial cognitive processes. Our synthesis yielded three new insights not evident when considering the model simulations in isolation. First, we identified behavior as an emergent product of the neurocognitive processes at work in the model, task context, and development. Second, we show the role of stability of perceptual and memory representations to support behavior within a task and across development. Third, we highlight continuity of ongoing real-time processes at work within and across tasks and over development.

Empirical Tests of a Brain-Based Model of Executive Function Development

Executive function (EF) plays a foundational role in development. A brain-based model of EF development is probed for the experiences that strengthen EF in the dimensional change card sort task in which children sort cards by one rule and then are asked to switch to another. Three-year-olds perseverate on the first rule, failing the task, whereas 4-year-olds pass. Three predictions of the model are tested to help 3-year-olds (N = 54) pass. Experiment 1 shows that experience with shapes and the label "shape" helps children. Experiment 2 shows that experience with colors-without a label-helps children. Experiment 3 shows that experience with colors induces dimensional attention. The implications of this work for early intervention are discussed.

Visual orienting and attention deficits in 5- and 10-month-old preterm infants

Cognitive outcomes for children born prematurely are well characterized, including increased risk for deficits in memory, attention, processing speed, and executive function. However, little is known about deficits that appear within the first 12 months, and how these early deficits contribute to later outcomes. To probe for functional deficits in visual attention, preterm and full-term infants were tested at 5 and 10 months with the Infant Orienting With Attention task (IOWA; Ross-Sheehy, Schneegans and Spencer, 2015). 5-month-old preterm infants showed significant deficits in orienting speed and task related error. However, 10-month-old preterm infants showed only selective deficits in spatial attention, particularly reflexive orienting responses, and responses that required some inhibition. These emergent deficits in spatial attention suggest preterm differences may be related to altered postnatal developmental trajectories. Moreover, we found no evidence of a dose-response relation between increased gestational risk and spatial attention. These results highlight the critical role of postnatal visual experience, and suggest that visual orienting may be a sensitive measure of attentional delay. Results reported here both inform current theoretical models of early perceptual/cognitive development, and future intervention efforts.

The Relationship between Sitting and the Use of Symmetry As a Cue to Figure-Ground Assignment in 6.5-Month-Old Infants

Two experiments examined the relationship between emerging sitting ability and sensitivity to symmetry as a cue to figure-ground (FG) assignment in 6.5-month-old infants (N = 80). In each experiment, infants who could sit unassisted (as indicated by parental report in Experiment 1 and by an in-lab assessment in Experiment 2) exhibited sensitivity to symmetry as a cue to FG assignment, whereas non-sitting infants did not. Experiment 2 further revealed that sensitivity to this cue is not related to general cognitive abilities as indexed using a non-related visual habituation task. Results demonstrate an important relationship between motor development and visual perception and further suggest that the achievement of important motor milestones such as stable sitting may be related to qualitative changes in sensitivity to monocular depth assignment cues such as symmetry.

Enhancing the executive functions of 3-year-olds in the Dimensional Change Card Sort task

Executive functions enable flexible thinking, something young children are notoriously bad at. For instance, in the dimensional change card sort (DCCS) task, 3-year-olds can sort cards by one dimension (shape), but continue to sort by this dimension when asked to switch (to color). This study tests a prediction of a dynamic neural field model that prior experience with the postswitch dimension can enhance 3-year-olds' performance in the DCCS. In Experiment 1A, a matching game was used to preexpose 3-year-olds (n = 36) to color. This facilitated switching from sorting by shape to color. In , 3-year-olds (n = 18) were preexposed to shape. This did not facilitate switching from sorting by color to shape. The model was used to explain this asymmetry.

The co-development of looking dynamics and discrimination performance

The study of looking dynamics and discrimination form the backbone of developmental science and are central processes in theories of infant cognition. Looking dynamics and discrimination change dramatically across the 1st year of life. Surprisingly, developmental changes in looking and discrimination have not been studied together. Recent simulations of a dynamic neural field (DNF) model of infant looking and memory suggest that looking and discrimination do change together over development and arise from a single neurodevelopmental mechanism. We probed this claim by measuring looking dynamics and discrimination along continuous, metrically organized dimensions in 5-, 7-, and 10-month-old infants (N = 119). The results showed that looking dynamics and discrimination changed together over development and are linked within individuals. Quantitative simulations of a DNF model provide insights into the processes that underlie developmental change in looking dynamics and discrimination. Simulation results support the view that these changes might arise from a single neurodevelopmental mechanism.

Autonomous visual exploration creates developmental change in familiarity and novelty seeking behaviors

What motivates children to radically transform themselves during early development? We addressed this question in the domain of infant visual exploration. Over the first year, infants' exploration shifts from familiarity to novelty seeking. This shift is delayed in preterm relative to term infants and is stable within individuals over the course of the first year. Laboratory tasks have shed light on the nature of this familiarity-to-novelty shift, but it is not clear what motivates the infant to change her exploratory style. We probed this by letting a Dynamic Neural Field (DNF) model of visual exploration develop itself via accumulating experience in a virtual world. We then situated it in a canonical laboratory task. Much like infants, the model exhibited a familiarity-to-novelty shift. When we manipulated the initial conditions of the model, the model's performance was developmentally delayed much like preterm infants. This delay was overcome by enhancing the model's experience during development. We also found that the model's performance was stable at the level of the individual. Our simulations indicate that novelty seeking emerges with no explicit motivational source via the accumulation of visual experience within a complex, dynamical exploratory system.

Working memory capacity as a dynamic process

A well-known characteristic of working memory (WM) is its limited capacity. The source of such limitations, however, is a continued point of debate. Developmental research is positioned to address this debate by jointly identifying the source(s) of limitations and the mechanism(s) underlying capacity increases. Here we provide a cross-domain survey of studies and theories of WM capacity development, which reveals a complex picture: dozens of studies from 50 papers show nearly universal increases in capacity estimates with age, but marked variation across studies, tasks, and domains. We argue that the full pattern of performance cannot be captured through traditional approaches emphasizing single causes, or even multiple separable causes, underlying capacity development. Rather, we consider WM capacity as a dynamic process that emerges from a unified cognitive system flexibly adapting to the context and demands of each task. We conclude by enumerating specific challenges for researchers and theorists that will need to be met in order to move our understanding forward.

Autonomy in action: linking the act of looking to memory formation in infancy via dynamic neural fields

Looking is a fundamental exploratory behavior by which infants acquire knowledge about the world. In theories of infant habituation, however, looking as an exploratory behavior has been deemphasized relative to the reliable nature with which looking indexes active cognitive processing. We present a new theory that connects looking to the dynamics of memory formation and formally implement this theory in a Dynamic Neural Field model that learns autonomously as it actively looks and looks away from a stimulus. We situate this model in a habituation task and illustrate the mechanisms by which looking, encoding, working memory formation, and long-term memory formation give rise to habituation across multiple stimulus and task contexts. We also illustrate how the act of looking and the temporal dynamics of learning affect each other. Finally, we test a new hypothesis about the sources of developmental differences in looking.

Behavioral dynamics and neural grounding of a dynamic field theory of multi-object tracking

The ability to dynamically track moving objects in the environment is crucial for efficient interaction with the local surrounds. Here, we examined this ability in the context of the multi-object tracking (MOT) task. Several theories have been proposed to explain how people track moving objects; however, only one of these previous theories is implemented in a real-time process model, and there has been no direct contact between theories of object tracking and the growing neural literature using ERPs and fMRI. Here, we present a neural process model of object tracking that builds from a Dynamic Field Theory of spatial cognition. Simulations reveal that our dynamic field model captures recent behavioral data examining the impact of speed and tracking duration on MOT performance. Moreover, we show that the same model with the same trajectories and parameters can shed light on recent ERP results probing how people distribute attentional resources to targets vs. distractors. We conclude by comparing this new theory of object tracking to other recent accounts, and discuss how the neural grounding of the theory might be effectively explored in future work.

Stronger neural dynamics capture changes in infants' visual working memory capacity over development

Visual working memory (VWM) capacity has been studied extensively in adults, and methodological advances have enabled researchers to probe capacity limits in infancy using a preferential looking paradigm. Evidence suggests that capacity increases rapidly between 6 and 10 months of age. To understand how the VWM system develops, we must understand the relationship between the looking behavior used to study VWM and underlying cognitive processes. We present a dynamic neural field model that captures both real-time and developmental processes underlying performance. Three simulation experiments show how looking is linked to VWM processes during infancy and how developmental changes in performance could arise through increasing neural connectivity. These results provide insight into the sources of capacity limits and VWM development more generally.

Twenty years and going strong: A dynamic systems revolution in motor and cognitive development

This article reviews the major contributions of dynamic systems theory in advancing thinking about development, the empirical insights the theory has generated, and the key challenges for the theory on the horizon. The first section discusses the emergence of dynamic systems theory in developmental science, the core concepts of the theory, and the resonance it has with other approaches that adopt a systems metatheory. The second section reviews the work of Esther Thelen and colleagues, who revolutionized how researchers think about the field of motor development. It also reviews recent extensions of this work to the domain of cognitive development. Here, the focus is on dynamic field theory, a formal, neurally grounded approach that has yielded novel insights into the embodied nature of cognition. The final section proposes that the key challenge on the horizon is to formally specify how interactions among multiple levels of analysis interact across multiple time scales to create developmental change.

Learning words in space and time: probing the mechanisms behind the suspicious-coincidence effect

A major debate in the study of word learning centers on the extension of categories to new items. The rational approach assumes that learners make structured inferences about category membership, whereas the mechanistic approach emphasizes the attentional and memory processes that form the basis of generalization behaviors. Recent support for the rational view comes from observations of the suspicious-coincidence effect: People generalize category membership narrowly when presented with three subordinate-level exemplars that share the same label and generalize category membership broadly when presented with one exemplar. Across three experiments, we examined the mechanistic basis of this effect. Results showed that the presentation of multiple subordinate-level exemplars led to narrow generalization only when the exemplars were presented simultaneously, even when the number of exemplars was increased from three to six. These data demonstrate that the suspicious-coincidence effect is firmly grounded in the general cognitive processes of attention, memory, and visual comparison.

Learning how actions function: the role of outcomes in infants' representation of events

Action is a fundamental component of object representations. However, little is known about how infants represent actions performed on objects. Across four experiments, we tested the hypothesis that at 10 months of age (N=80) infants represent the general ability of actions to produce outcomes (sounds). Experiments 1A and 1B showed that infants encode actions and associate actions and object appearances in events in which actions produced no sound outcomes. Experiment 2 showed that infants associate the presence or absence of outcomes with actions. Experiment 3 showed, in contrast, that infants did not associate the presence or absence of outcomes with object appearances. Together, these studies suggest that infants encode the outcome potential of specific actions. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the development of action representations.

The relation between infants' activity with objects and attention to object appearance

The authors examined the relation between infants' motor skills and attention to objects features in events in which a hand acted on an object (e.g., squeezed it) that then produced a sound (e.g., squeaking). In this study, 6- to 7-month-old infants (N = 41) were habituated to a single event and then tested with changes in appearance and action. Infants robustly responded to changes in action, but as a group did not respond to changes in appearance. Moreover, more skilled activity with objects during naturalistic play was associated with longer looking in response to a change in appearance, but not to a change in action. Implications for the relation between perception and action in infancy are discussed. (

It clicks when it is rolled and it squeaks when it is squeezed: what 10-month-old infants learn about object function

Function has been considered important in numerous literatures in the study of cognitive development, yet little is known about what and how infants learn about function. Five experiments examined what 10-month-old infants (N=80) learn about functions that involve a sound produced when an object is acted on. Infants habituated to a single object (Experiment 1) or multiple objects that performed the same function (Experiment 2) learned both the actions and the sounds. Infants did not appear to learn relations between actions and sounds (Experiment 3) or appearances and sounds (Experiment 4), although they did learn the relations between appearances and actions (Experiment 5). These results are discussed in terms of how infants learn about object function.