摘要:

Developments in children's participation in causal discourse with their mothers and older siblings were studied in the naturally occurring conversations of 50 second‐born children observed at home at 33 and 40 months. There were marked increases in discourse about causality, and changes in content and in the social context in which children discussed cause, with an increase in causal talk about inner states and social practices. At 33 months children talked about cause chiefly in attempts to get their own needs met, at 40 months chiefly in reflective discussion. Patterns over time in the discourse measures, and correlations between these measures at 33 months and the children's success on an assessment of understanding of the causes of emotions at 40 months highlighted the continuity in child differences, and the importance of particular pragmatic contexts, including disputes, within which discourse about causality takes plac

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1993.tb00591.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This study examined the types of causal attributions young children make for their own success and failure at performance tasks. The results showed that young children's attributions are different from those subsumed under adult models and that there were significant sex, but not ethnic, differences in the attributional styles employed. Boys exhibited a ‘self‐enhancing’ pattern of attributions, whereas girls' attributions were ‘self‐de

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1993.tb00592.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The ‘resource deficit model of aging’ (e.g. Craik&McDowd, 1987) proposes that differences in memory retrieval efficiency between younger and older adults are due to a global reduction in information processing resources with advancing age. So far, this model has only been tested for retrieval of recently acquired information or for data held in immediate memory. To see whether the resource deficit model of aging would apply to memory tasks requiring retrieval of overlearned information from long‐term memory, middle‐aged (50–59) and elderly (70–79) adults were compared on a dual‐task paradigm in which the primary task was category exemplar generation and the secondary task was two‐choice auditory reaction time. The respective resource demands of two conditions of exemplar generation, hard and easy, derived from Battig&Montague's (1969) potency norms, were compared with a neutral condition of reading English words aloud. Results indicated that retrieval of overlearned information from long‐term memory is indeed a resource‐demanding (effortful) rather than a resource‐free (automatic) process, and that the amount of resources (effort) it requires depends upon the familiarity of the word being searched for. However, the divided attention costs of the two retrieval tasks did not interact with age, fluid intelligence or crystallized intelligence. The implications for the resource deficit model of memor

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1993.tb00593.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Previous research has demonstrated age differences in prosocial behaviours and has focused on the development of theoretically prescribed cognitive abilities thought to be prerequisite. However, the empirical relations between cognitive abilities and prosocial behaviours have typically not been large and there has been considerable inconsistency in these findings. The present studies were based upon an information processing perspective that assumes task‐specific cognitive demands for prosocial behaviours. In these studies, the effect of children's temporal monitoring abilities was examined as a logical prerequisite for the equal sharing of a desirable object within a limited time period. In the first study, age differences in equal sharing were partially accounted for by age differences in the temporal monitoring abilities of 5–12‐year‐old‐children. In the second and third studies, 3–5‐year‐old preschool children shared more equally when there was a reduction in the cognitive demands involved in temporal monitoring. In addition, in all three studies motivational manipulations consisting of either an instructional set or the friendship status of the participating peer influenced equal sharing. These findings support the proposition that the range of prosocial behaviours available to children is limited by the development of task‐specific cognitive abilities, and that the motivation properties of the situation also influence the expression of pro

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1993.tb00594.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Developmental increases in verbal memory span are correlated with improvements culation rate (AR) and item identification time (IT). In different theoretical accounts, AR reflects the efficiency of an articulatory rehearsal loop, while IT reflects the availability of a central workspace. In the present study, IT and AR were compared as predictors of memory span for spoken words of one, two and three syllables in children aged 5, 8 and 11. The results showed that a linear function described the variation of span with both age and word‐length but there was no equivalent relationship between span and IT. The sensitivity of span to word‐length was much reduced when rehearsal was prevented by articulatory suppression. These findings suggest that variation of span with age and word‐length is attributable to rehearsal rather than the availability of a central workspace. However, suppression did not reduce age differences in span, showing that developmental processes other than rehearsal are also impo

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1993.tb00595.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Normal children above 5 years old or so show a shift in their drawing development from intellectual to visual realism (the I‐VR shift). Some cases of individuals with autism have been reported who appear to have a mental age (MA) of considerablylessthan 5 years old but who are capable of visual realism. This raises the possibility that in autism, the I‐VR shift is independent of MA—that children with autism as a group might show precocious visual realism, independent of technical competence. This hypothesis was tested by giving three different drawing tasks to a group of subjects with autism who werenotselected for drawing competence. On these tasks they did not differ from either normal children or subjects with mental handicap (of an equivalent MA)—they showed the I‐VR shift at approximately the same MA level (above 5:5 years). This refutes the hypothesis that this shift is independent of MA in autism. The existence of intellectual realism as a normal phase in the drawing development of subjects with autism is discussed in relation to Leslie's meta‐representa

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1993.tb00596.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Concern has often been expressed over the possibility of ethnic or racial bias in teachers' assessment of children's behaviour problems. In this paper we present two studies that address this issue directly by looking at the relationship between teachers' subjective ratings of hyperactivity and more objective measures of activity and inattention in groups of ‘Asian’ and ‘English’ primary schoolchildren. In Study 1, teachers' questionnaire and interview ratings of hyperactivity were compared with mechanical and observational measures of activity and inattention taken during a testing session for groups of ‘Asian’ persistently hyperactive boys and non‐hyperactive controls and their ‘English’ classmates. Although ‘Asian’ hyperactives were rated by teachers as being as deviant as ‘English’ hyperactives, in actuality they were no more active and inattentive than the ‘English’ control children on the majority of objective measures. In Study 2, groups of ‘Asian’ and ‘English’ boys, matched on a number of variables, including ratings of hyperactivity, were observed in a classroom situation. A standard observational measure of classroom hyperactivity was used. As in Study 1, ‘Asian’ and ‘English’ children who were rated equally hyperactive differed in terms of actual hyperactive behaviour. ‘Asian’ children displayed fewer hyperactive behaviours than their ‘English’ classmates. A number of possible explanations for these results are suggested and their implications for the use of r

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1993.tb00597.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This study is a follow‐up of studies indicating that infants by the end of the first year of life will fixate photographs and films of other infants of the same sex for a longer duration than those of the opposite sex (Aitken, 1977). While Lewis&Brooks‐Gunn (1975, 1979) argue that this result is a function of the infant's ability to identify like‐self from featural cues, an alternative informational basis is considered here, similar to that of Aitken. On presentation of a boy and girl infant as patch‐light displays on film to a group of 10–14‐month‐olds, it was found that the first‐fixation measure yielded a significant preference for same sex. It is argued that this constitutes evidence of an infant capacity to represent self and others at a higher‐order level than that associated with featur

ISSN:0261-510X    

DOI:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1993.tb00598.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1993

数据来源: WILEY