401
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Fisher C, Jin KS, Scott RM. The Developmental Origins of Syntactic Bootstrapping. Top Cogn Sci 2020; 12:48-77. [PMID: 31419084 PMCID: PMC7004857 DOI: 10.1111/tops.12447] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2018] [Revised: 06/04/2019] [Accepted: 06/04/2019] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Children use syntax to learn verbs, in a process known as syntactic bootstrapping. The structure-mapping account proposes that syntactic bootstrapping begins with a universal bias to map each noun phrase in a sentence onto a participant role in a structured conceptual representation of an event. Equipped with this bias, children interpret the number of noun phrases accompanying a new verb as evidence about the semantic predicate-argument structure of the sentence, and therefore about the meaning of the verb. In this paper, we first review evidence for the structure-mapping account, and then discuss challenges to the account arising from the existence of languages that allow verbs' arguments to be omitted, such as Korean. These challenges prompt us to (a) refine our notion of the distributional learning mechanisms that create representations of sentence structure, and (b) propose that an expectation of discourse continuity allows children to gather linguistic evidence for each verb's arguments across sentences in a coherent discourse. Taken together, the proposed learning mechanisms and biases sketch a route whereby simple aspects of sentence structure guide verb learning from the start of multi-word sentence comprehension, and do so even if some of the new verb's arguments are omitted due to discourse redundancy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cynthia Fisher
- Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
| | - Kyong-Sun Jin
- Department of Psychology, Sungshin Women's University
| | - Rose M Scott
- Psychological Sciences, University of California Merced
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402
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Dotan D, Pinheiro-Chagas P, Al Roumi F, Dehaene S. Track It to Crack It: Dissecting Processing Stages with Finger Tracking. Trends Cogn Sci 2019; 23:1058-1070. [DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2019.10.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2019] [Revised: 09/12/2019] [Accepted: 10/06/2019] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
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403
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A thousand studies for the price of one: Accelerating psychological science with Pushkin. Behav Res Methods 2019; 51:1782-1803. [PMID: 30746644 DOI: 10.3758/s13428-018-1155-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/04/2023]
Abstract
Half of the world's population has internet access. In principle, researchers are no longer limited to subjects they can recruit into the laboratory. Any study that can be run on a computer or mobile device can be run with nearly any demographic anywhere in the world, and in large numbers. This has allowed scientists to effectively run hundreds of experiments at once. Despite their transformative power, such studies remain rare for practical reasons: the need for sophisticated software, the difficulty of recruiting so many subjects, and a lack of research paradigms that make effective use of their large amounts of data, due to such realities as that they require sophisticated software in order to run effectively. We present Pushkin: an open-source platform for designing and conducting massive experiments over the internet. Pushkin allows for a wide range of behavioral paradigms, through integration with the intuitive and flexible jsPsych experiment engine. It also addresses the basic technical challenges associated with massive, worldwide studies, including auto-scaling, extensibility, machine-assisted experimental design, multisession studies, and data security.
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404
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Wood SM, Wood JN. Using automation to combat the replication crisis: A case study from controlled-rearing studies of newborn chicks. Infant Behav Dev 2019; 57:101329. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.101329] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/06/2018] [Revised: 01/18/2019] [Accepted: 05/01/2019] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
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405
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Baer C, Odic D. Certainty in numerical judgments develops independently of the approximate number system. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2019. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.100817] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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406
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Berent I, Platt M, Sandoboe GM. People's Intuitions About Innateness. Open Mind (Camb) 2019; 3:101-114. [PMID: 34485790 PMCID: PMC8412331 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2019] [Accepted: 08/21/2019] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Few questions in science are as controversial as the origins of knowledge. Whether knowledge (e.g., "objects are cohesive") is partly innate has been debated for centuries. Here, we ask whether our difficulties with innate knowledge could be grounded in human cognition itself. In eight experiments, we compared reasoning about the innateness of traits that capture knowledge (cognitive traits) with noncognitive (sensorimotor and emotive) traits. Experiments 1-4 examined adult and infant traits; Experiment 5 presented detailed descriptions of published infant experiments. Results showed that people viewed cognitive traits as less likely to be innate in humans-the stronger the association with "thinking," the lower the rating for "innateness." Experiments 6-8 explored human, bird, and alien traits that were presented as innate. Participants, however, still considered cognitive traits as less likely to emerge spontaneously (i.e., be innate). These results show that people are selectively biased in reasoning about the origins of knowledge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Iris Berent
- Department of Psychology, Northeastern University
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407
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Braginsky M, Yurovsky D, Marchman VA, Frank MC. Consistency and Variability in Children's Word Learning Across Languages. Open Mind (Camb) 2019; 3:52-67. [PMID: 31517175 PMCID: PMC6716390 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/21/2017] [Accepted: 04/08/2019] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Why do children learn some words earlier than others? The order in which words are acquired can provide clues about the mechanisms of word learning. In a large-scale corpus analysis, we use parent-report data from over 32,000 children to estimate the acquisition trajectories of around 400 words in each of 10 languages, predicting them on the basis of independently derived properties of the words’ linguistic environment (from corpora) and meaning (from adult judgments). We examine the consistency and variability of these predictors across languages, by lexical category, and over development. The patterning of predictors across languages is quite similar, suggesting similar processes in operation. In contrast, the patterning of predictors across different lexical categories is distinct, in line with theories that posit different factors at play in the acquisition of content words and function words. By leveraging data at a significantly larger scale than previous work, our analyses identify candidate generalizations about the processes underlying word learning across languages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mika Braginsky
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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408
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Abstract
Spatial biases associated with subtraction or addition problem solving are generally considered as reflecting leftward or rightward attention shifts along a mental numerical continuum, but an alternative hypothesis not implying spatial attention proposes that the operator (plus or minus sign) may favour a response to one side of space (left or right) because of semantic associations. We tested these two accounts in a series of temporal order judgement experiments that consisted in the auditory presentation of addition or subtraction problems followed 200 ms (Experiments 1-2) or 800 ms (Experiment 3) later by the display of two lateralized targets in close temporal succession. To dissociate the side where the operation first brought their attention from the side they had to respond to, we asked participants to report which of the left or right target appeared first or last on screen. Under the attention-orienting account, addition should elicit more rightward responses than subtraction when participants have to focus on the first target, but more leftward responses when they have to focus on the last target, because the latter is opposite to the side where the operation first brought their attention. Under the semantic account, addition should elicit more rightward responses than subtraction, no matter the focus is on the first or last target, because participants should systematically favour the side conceptually linked to the operator. The results of the three experiments converge to indicate that, in lateralized target detection tasks, the spatial biases induced by arithmetic operations stem from semantic associations.
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409
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Prendergast CN. Infant Understanding of Different Forms of Social Exclusion. Brain Sci 2019; 9:E227. [PMID: 31500231 PMCID: PMC6769953 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci9090227] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/13/2019] [Revised: 08/30/2019] [Accepted: 09/03/2019] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
In a series of eye-tracking studies, we investigated preverbal infants' understanding of social exclusion by analyzing their gaze behaviors as they were familiarized with animations depicting social acceptance and explicit or implicit social exclusion. In addition, we implemented preferential reaching and anticipatory looking paradigms to further assess understanding of outcomes. Across all experiments (n = 81), it was found that 7-9 month-old infants exhibited non-random visual scanning and gaze behaviors and responded systematically and above random chance in their choice of character and, to some extent, in their anticipation of the movement of a neutral character during a test trial. Together, the results suggest that not only do preverbal infants follow and understand third party social events, such as acceptance and exclusion, but that they also update their representations of particular characters as events unfold and evaluate characters on the basis of their actions, as well as the consequences of those actions.
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410
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Kartushina N, Mayor J. Word knowledge in six- to nine-month-old Norwegian infants? Not without additional frequency cues. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2019; 6:180711. [PMID: 31598270 PMCID: PMC6774954 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.180711] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/03/2019] [Accepted: 08/23/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
The past 5 years have witnessed claims that infants as young as six months of age understand the meaning of several words. To reach this conclusion, researchers presented infants with pairs of pictures from distinct semantic domains and observed longer looks at an object upon hearing its name as compared with the name of the other object. However, these gaze patterns might indicate infants' sensibility to the word frequency and/or its contextual relatedness to the object regardless of a firm semantic understanding of this word. The current study attempted, first, to replicate, in Norwegian language, the results of recent studies showing that six- to nine-month-old English-learning infants understand the meaning of many common words. Second, it assessed the robustness of a 'comprehension' interpretation by dissociating semantic knowledge from confounded extra-linguistic cues via the manipulation of the contingency between words and objects. Our planned analyses revealed that Norwegian six- to nine-month-old infants did not understand the meaning of the words used in the study. Our exploratory analyses showed evidence of word comprehension at eight to nine months of age-rather than from six to seven months of age for English-learning infants-suggesting that there are cross-linguistic differences in the onset of word comprehension. In addition, our study revealed that eight- to nine-month-old infants cannot rely exclusively on single extra-linguistic cues to disambiguate between two items, thus suggesting the existence of early word-object mappings. However, these mappings are weak, as infants need additional cues (such as an imbalance in frequency of word use) to reveal word recognition. Our results suggest that the very onset of word comprehension is not based on the infants' knowledge of words per se. Rather, infants use a converging set of cues to identify referents, among which frequency is a robust (pre-semantic) cue that infants exploit to guide object disambiguation and, in turn, learn new words.
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Affiliation(s)
- Natalia Kartushina
- Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo, Forskningsveien 3A, 0373 Oslo, Norway
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411
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Leivada E, Westergaard M. Universal linguistic hierarchies are not innately wired. Evidence from multiple adjectives. PeerJ 2019; 7:e7438. [PMID: 31396461 PMCID: PMC6679903 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.7438] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2018] [Accepted: 07/08/2019] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Linguists and psychologists have explained the remarkable similarities in the orderings of linguistic elements across languages by suggesting that our inborn ability for language makes available certain innately wired primitives. Different types of adjectives, adverbs, and other elements in the functional spine are considered to occupy fixed positions via innate hierarchies that determine orderings such as A>B>C, banning other permutations (*B>C>A). The goal of this research is to tap into the nature and rigidity of such hierarchies by comparing what happens when people process orderings that either comply with them or violate them. METHOD N = 170 neurotypical, adult speakers completed a timed forced choice task that featured stimuli showing a combination of two adjectives and a Spelke-object (e.g., 'I bought a square black table'). Two types of responses were collected: (i) acceptability judgments on a 3-point Likert scale that featured the options 'correct', 'neither correct nor wrong', and 'wrong' and (ii) reaction times. The task featured three conditions: 1. size adjective > nationality adjective, 2. color adjective > shape adjective, 3. subjective comment adjective > material adjective. Each condition had two orders. In the congruent order, the adjective pair was ordered in agreement with what is traditionally accepted as dictated by the universal hierarchy. In the incongruent order, the ordering was reversed, thus the hierarchy was violated. RESULTS In the first experiment, the results of n = 140 monolinguals showed that across conditions, both congruent and incongruent orders were generally accepted as correct. For 2/3 conditions, the difference in acceptability ratings between congruent and incongruent orders did not reach statistical significance. Using time as a window to processing, reaction times showed that incongruent orders do not take longer to process than congruent ones, as should be the case if the former were treated as being licensed under some type of special condition (e.g., contrastive focus) that reverses the unmarked order and legitimizes the violation of the hierarchy. In the second experiment, the results of n = 30 bidialectals, tested in both language varieties, corroborated the findings of the first experiment. CONCLUSIONS Our findings do not provide evidence for an innate hierarchy for adjective ordering that imposes one rigid, unmarked order. We discuss the importance of notions such as subjectivity and inherentness, and show that for some conditions, not only is there no evidence for a hard constraint that bans incongruent orders, but even simple preferences of congruent orders over incongruent ones are hard to discern. Capturing the bigger picture, given that both the hierarchies and their legit permutations have been described as innate, our results reduce the amount of primitives that are cast as innate, eventually offering a deflationist approach to human linguistic cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Evelina Leivada
- Department of Language and Culture, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
| | - Marit Westergaard
- Department of Language and Culture, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
- Department of Language & Literature, NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
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412
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Essler S, Lepach AC, Petermann F, Paulus M. Equality, equity, or inequality duplication? How preschoolers distribute necessary and luxury resources between rich and poor others. SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT 2019. [DOI: 10.1111/sode.12390] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Samuel Essler
- Private University of Applied Sciences Göttingen Germany
| | - Anja C. Lepach
- Private University of Applied Sciences Göttingen Germany
| | - Franz Petermann
- Center of Clinical Psychology and Rehabilitation University of Bremen Bremen Germany
| | - Markus Paulus
- Department of Psychology Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Munich Germany
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413
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Woike JK, Kanngiesser P. Most People Keep Their Word Rather Than Their Money. Open Mind (Camb) 2019; 3:68-88. [PMID: 34485788 PMCID: PMC8412196 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2018] [Accepted: 05/14/2019] [Indexed: 11/05/2022] Open
Abstract
Promises are crucial for human cooperation because they allow people to enter into voluntary commitments about future behavior. Here we present a novel, fully incentivized paradigm to measure voluntary and costly promise-keeping in the absence of external sanctions. We found across three studies (N = 4,453) that the majority of participants (61%-98%) kept their promises to pay back a specified amount of a monetary endowment, and most justified their decisions by referring to obligations and norms. Varying promise elicitation methods (Study 1a) and manipulating stake sizes (Study 2a) had negligible effects. Simultaneously, when others estimated promise-keeping rates (using two different estimation methods), they systematically underestimated promise-keeping by up to 40% (Studies 1b and 2b). Additional robustness checks to reduce potential reputational concerns and possible demand effects revealed that the majority of people still kept their word (Study 3). Promises have a strong normative power and binding effect on behavior. Nevertheless, people appear to pessimistically underestimate the power of others' promises. This behavior-estimation gap may prevent efficient coordination and cooperation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan K. Woike
- Center for Adaptive Rationality (ARC), Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
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414
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Infants Choose Those Who Defer in Conflicts. Curr Biol 2019; 29:2183-2189.e5. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.05.054] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/17/2018] [Revised: 04/20/2019] [Accepted: 05/21/2019] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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415
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Goswami U. Speech rhythm and language acquisition: an amplitude modulation phase hierarchy perspective. Ann N Y Acad Sci 2019; 1453:67-78. [DOI: 10.1111/nyas.14137] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/15/2019] [Revised: 05/07/2019] [Accepted: 05/16/2019] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Usha Goswami
- Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of PsychologyUniversity of Cambridge Cambridge UK
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416
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Verheyen S, White A, Égré P. Revealing Criterial Vagueness in Inconsistencies. Open Mind (Camb) 2019; 3:41-51. [PMID: 31517174 PMCID: PMC6716385 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/16/2018] [Accepted: 03/22/2019] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Sixty undergraduate students made category membership decisions for each of 132 candidate exemplar-category name pairs (e.g., chess - Sports) in each of two separate sessions. They were frequently inconsistent from one session to the next, both for nominal categories such as Sports and Fish, and ad hoc categories such as Things You Rescue from a Burning House. A mixture model analysis revealed that several of these inconsistencies could be attributed to criterial vagueness: participants adopting different criteria for membership in the two sessions. This finding indicates that categorization is a probabilistic process, whereby the conditions for applying a category label are not invariant. Individuals have various functional meanings of nominal categories at their disposal and entertain competing goals for ad hoc categories.
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Affiliation(s)
- Steven Verheyen
- Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, Département d’études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, PSL University, CNRS
- Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven
| | - Anne White
- Laboratory for Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven
| | - Paul Égré
- Institut Jean Nicod, Département d’études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, PSL University, CNRS
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417
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Tatone D, Hernik M, Csibra G. Minimal Cues of Possession Transfer Compel Infants to Ascribe the Goal of Giving. Open Mind (Camb) 2019; 3:31-40. [PMID: 31149648 PMCID: PMC6515850 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2018] [Accepted: 03/18/2019] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Human infants’ readiness to interpret impoverished object-transfer events as acts of giving suggests the existence of a dedicated action schema for identifying interactions based on active object transfer. Here we investigated the sensitivity of this giving schema by testing whether 15-month-olds would interpret the displacement of an object as an agent’s goal even if it could be dismissed as a side effect of a different goal. Across two looking-time experiments, we showed that, when the displacement only resulted in a change of object location, infants expected the agent to pursue the other goal. However, when the same change of location resulted in a transfer of object possession, infants reliably adopted this outcome as the agent’s goal. The interpretive shift that the mere presence of a potential recipient caused is testament to the infants’ susceptibility to cues of benefit delivery: an action efficiently causing a transfer of object possession appeared sufficient to induce the interpretation of goal-directed giving even if the transfer was carried out without any interaction between Giver and Givee and was embedded in an event affording an alternative goal interpretation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Denis Tatone
- Cognitive Development Center, Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University
| | - Mikołaj Hernik
- Cognitive Development Center, Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University
| | - Gergely Csibra
- Cognitive Development Center, Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University
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418
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Myers BR, Lense MD, Gordon RL. Pushing the Envelope: Developments in Neural Entrainment to Speech and the Biological Underpinnings of Prosody Perception. Brain Sci 2019; 9:brainsci9030070. [PMID: 30909454 PMCID: PMC6468669 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci9030070] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/31/2018] [Revised: 03/08/2019] [Accepted: 03/15/2019] [Indexed: 01/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Prosodic cues in speech are indispensable for comprehending a speaker’s message, recognizing emphasis and emotion, parsing segmental units, and disambiguating syntactic structures. While it is commonly accepted that prosody provides a fundamental service to higher-level features of speech, the neural underpinnings of prosody processing are not clearly defined in the cognitive neuroscience literature. Many recent electrophysiological studies have examined speech comprehension by measuring neural entrainment to the speech amplitude envelope, using a variety of methods including phase-locking algorithms and stimulus reconstruction. Here we review recent evidence for neural tracking of the speech envelope and demonstrate the importance of prosodic contributions to the neural tracking of speech. Prosodic cues may offer a foundation for supporting neural synchronization to the speech envelope, which scaffolds linguistic processing. We argue that prosody has an inherent role in speech perception, and future research should fill the gap in our knowledge of how prosody contributes to speech envelope entrainment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brett R Myers
- Department of Otolaryngology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 1215 21st Ave S, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
- Department of Psychology and Human Development, Peabody College, 230 Appleton Place, Nashville, TN 37203, USA.
| | - Miriam D Lense
- Department of Otolaryngology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 1215 21st Ave S, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
- Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, 110 Magnolia Circle, Nashville, TN 37203, USA.
- Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, 2215 Garland Ave, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
- The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy, Vanderbilt University, 1801 Edgehill Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212, USA.
| | - Reyna L Gordon
- Department of Otolaryngology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, 1215 21st Ave S, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
- Vanderbilt Brain Institute, Vanderbilt University, 2215 Garland Ave, Nashville, TN 37232, USA.
- The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy, Vanderbilt University, 1801 Edgehill Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212, USA.
- Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 2301 Vanderbilt Place, Nashville, TN 37240, USA.
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419
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Mollica F, Piantadosi ST. Humans store about 1.5 megabytes of information during language acquisition. ROYAL SOCIETY OPEN SCIENCE 2019; 6:181393. [PMID: 31032001 PMCID: PMC6458406 DOI: 10.1098/rsos.181393] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/23/2018] [Accepted: 02/25/2019] [Indexed: 05/11/2023]
Abstract
We introduce theory-neutral estimates of the amount of information learners possess about how language works. We provide estimates at several levels of linguistic analysis: phonemes, wordforms, lexical semantics, word frequency and syntax. Our best guess is that the average English-speaking adult has learned 12.5 million bits of information, the majority of which is lexical semantics. Interestingly, very little of this information is syntactic, even in our upper bound analyses. Generally, our results suggest that learners possess remarkable inferential mechanisms capable of extracting, on average, nearly 2000 bits of information about how language works each day for 18 years.
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Affiliation(s)
- Francis Mollica
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA
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420
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Cristia A, Dupoux E, Ratner NB, Soderstrom M. Segmentability Differences Between Child-Directed and Adult-Directed Speech: A Systematic Test With an Ecologically Valid Corpus. Open Mind (Camb) 2019; 3:13-22. [PMID: 31149647 PMCID: PMC6515859 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/15/2018] [Accepted: 12/11/2018] [Indexed: 11/04/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous computational modeling suggests it is much easier to segment words from child-directed speech (CDS) than adult-directed speech (ADS). However, this conclusion is based on data collected in the laboratory, with CDS from play sessions and ADS between a parent and an experimenter, which may not be representative of ecologically collected CDS and ADS. Fully naturalistic ADS and CDS collected with a nonintrusive recording device as the child went about her day were analyzed with a diverse set of algorithms. The difference between registers was small compared to differences between algorithms; it reduced when corpora were matched, and it even reversed under some conditions. These results highlight the interest of studying learnability using naturalistic corpora and diverse algorithmic definitions.
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421
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Using automatic face analysis to score infant behaviour from video collected online. Infant Behav Dev 2019; 54:1-12. [DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2018.11.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2018] [Revised: 09/30/2018] [Accepted: 11/19/2018] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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422
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Chen Y, Loehr JD, Campbell JI. Does the min-counting strategy for simple addition become automatized in educated adults? A behavioural and ERP study of the size congruency effect. Neuropsychologia 2019; 124:311-321. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.11.009] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2018] [Revised: 10/17/2018] [Accepted: 11/17/2018] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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423
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Abstract
Our minds constantly evaluate the confidence in what we see, think, and remember. Previous work suggests that confidence is a domain-general currency in adulthood, unifying otherwise independent sensory and perceptual representations. Here, we test whether children also possess a domain-general sense of confidence over otherwise independent perceptual dimensions. Six- to 9-year-olds completed either three simple perceptual discrimination tasks—a number task (“Which group has more dots?”), an area task (“Which blob is bigger?”), and an emotions task (“Which face is happier?”)—or three relative confidence tasks, selecting which of two trials they are more confident on. We find that while children’s discrimination performance across the three tasks was independent and constituted three separate factors, children’s confidence in each of three dimensions was strongly correlated and constituted only a single factor. Our results suggest that confidence is a domain-general currency even in childhood, providing a mechanism by which disparate perceptual representations could be integrated.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carolyn Baer
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia
| | | | - Darko Odic
- Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia
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424
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Chernyak N, Harvey T, Tarullo AR, Rockers PC, Blake PR. Varieties of Young Children's Prosocial Behavior in Zambia: The Role of Cognitive Ability, Wealth, and Inequality Beliefs. Front Psychol 2018; 9:2209. [PMID: 30505288 PMCID: PMC6250828 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02209] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/12/2018] [Accepted: 10/25/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
By the 3rd year of life, young children engage in a variety of prosocial behaviors, including helping others attain their goals (instrumental helping), responding to others' emotional needs (comforting), and sharing resources (costly giving). Recent work suggests that these behaviors emerge early, during the first 2 years of life (Svetlova et al., 2010; Thompson and Newton, 2012; Dunfield and Kuhlmeier, 2013). To date, however, work investigating early varieties of prosocial behavior has largely focused on Western samples and has not assessed the impact of poverty and inequality. In this work, we investigate prosocial behavior in 3-year-olds in Zambia, a lower-middle income country with high wealth inequality. Experiments were integrated into a larger public health study along with both objective and subjective (parent) measures of wealth and inequality. Three-hundred-seventy-seven children (Mean age = 36.77 months; SD = 2.26 months) were presented with an instrumental helping task, comforting task, and two steps of a giving task - one with higher cost (children could give away their only resource) and one with lower cost (children had three resources to give). As predicted, rates of prosociality varied hierarchically by the cost of the action: instrumental helping was the most common followed by comforting, lower cost giving, and higher cost giving. All prosocial behaviors were significantly correlated with one another (with the exception of high cost giving), and with general cognitive ability. Objective family wealth did not predict any of the child's prosocial behaviors. However, subjective beliefs showed that mothers who believed that they had more than others in their village had children who were more likely to engage in instrumental helping, and mothers who believed that village inequality was a problem had children who were more likely to engage in low cost giving. Low cost giving was also more likely for children whose parents reported reading storybooks to them. This suggests that costly giving in the context of pretend play may relate to children's experience with using stories as representations of real life events. The results suggest both cultural differences and universalities in the development of prosociality and point to environmental factors that influence prosociality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nadia Chernyak
- Department of Psychology, Boston College, Newton, MA, United States.,Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, United States
| | - Teresa Harvey
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Amanda R Tarullo
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Peter C Rockers
- Department of Global Health, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Peter R Blake
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, MA, United States
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425
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Newport EL. Is there a critical period for L1 but not L2? BILINGUALISM (CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND) 2018; 21:928-929. [PMID: 31632182 PMCID: PMC6800022 DOI: 10.1017/s1366728918000305] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
I am very pleased to comment on this important and thought-provoking keynote article. The evidence reviewed by Mayberry and Kluender (Mayberry & Kluender, 2017) is extremely significant for our understanding of a critical or sensitive period for the acquisition of language, and the hypothesis they suggest regarding a critical period for first but not second language is challenging. The studies of late L1 learning from the Mayberry lab provide very strong evidence for a critical or sensitive period. However, I am less persuaded of their interpretation of L2 learning and the contrast they hypothesize between L1 and L2 learning during adulthood. I will suggest another hypothesis regarding the differences in age effects for first versus second languages, one that is equally compatible with their important data. My focus here is therefore on their interpretation of the L2 literature. I will not comment further on their review of Mayberry's remarkable studies of late L1 acquisition, except to congratulate them on this very important work.
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426
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Araújo J, Flanagan S, Castro-Caldas A, Goswami U. The temporal modulation structure of illiterate versus literate adult speech. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0205224. [PMID: 30356281 PMCID: PMC6200213 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0205224] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2017] [Accepted: 09/21/2018] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
The temporal modulation structure of speech plays a key role in neural encoding of the speech signal. Amplitude modulations (AMs, quasi-rhythmic changes in signal energy or intensity) in speech are encoded by neuronal oscillations (rhythmic variations in neural excitability in large cell networks) that oscillate at matching temporal rates. To date, however, all neural studies have investigated adult-directed speech (ADS) as produced and perceived by highly literate adults. Whether temporal features of ADS vary with the skills of the speaker, for example literacy skills, is currently unknown. Here we analyse the temporal structure of ADS spoken by illiterate, low literate (≤ 4 years of literacy) and highly literate (≥ 12 years of literacy) adults. We find that illiterates produce speech differently. Spontaneous conversational speech produced by illiterate adults showed significantly less synchronised coupling between AM bands (less phase synchronisation) than conversational speech produced by low literate and highly literate adults, and contained significantly fewer syllables per second. There was also a significant relationship between years of literacy and the amount of theta-band energy in conversational speech. When asked to produce rhythmic proverbs learned in childhood, all groups could produce speech with similar AM phase synchronisation, suggesting that the differences in spontaneous conversational speech were not caused by physiological constraints. The data suggest that the temporal modulation structure of spoken language changes with the acquisition of cultural skills like literacy that are usually a product of schooling. There is a cultural effect on the temporal modulation structure of spoken language.
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Affiliation(s)
- João Araújo
- Centro de Investigação Interdisciplinar em Saúde (CIIS), Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Palma de Cima, Lisboa, Portugal
- * E-mail:
| | - Sheila Flanagan
- Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Alexandre Castro-Caldas
- Centro de Investigação Interdisciplinar em Saúde (CIIS), Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Palma de Cima, Lisboa, Portugal
| | - Usha Goswami
- Centre for Neuroscience in Education, Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
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427
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Kalashnikova M, Peter V, Di Liberto GM, Lalor EC, Burnham D. Infant-directed speech facilitates seven-month-old infants' cortical tracking of speech. Sci Rep 2018; 8:13745. [PMID: 30214000 PMCID: PMC6137049 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-32150-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 49] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2018] [Accepted: 08/06/2018] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
This study assessed cortical tracking of temporal information in incoming natural speech in seven-month-old infants. Cortical tracking refers to the process by which neural activity follows the dynamic patterns of the speech input. In adults, it has been shown to involve attentional mechanisms and to facilitate effective speech encoding. However, in infants, cortical tracking or its effects on speech processing have not been investigated. This study measured cortical tracking of speech in infants and, given the involvement of attentional mechanisms in this process, cortical tracking of both infant-directed speech (IDS), which is highly attractive to infants, and the less captivating adult-directed speech (ADS), were compared. IDS is the speech register parents use when addressing young infants. In comparison to ADS, it is characterised by several acoustic qualities that capture infants' attention to linguistic input and assist language learning. Seven-month-old infants' cortical responses were recorded via electroencephalography as they listened to IDS or ADS recordings. Results showed stronger low-frequency cortical tracking of the speech envelope in IDS than in ADS. This suggests that IDS has a privileged status in facilitating successful cortical tracking of incoming speech which may, in turn, augment infants' early speech processing and even later language development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marina Kalashnikova
- The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, 2527, Australia.
| | - Varghese Peter
- The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, 2527, Australia
| | - Giovanni M Di Liberto
- School of Engineering, Trinity Centre for Bioengineering, and Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
- Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, 75005, France
| | - Edmund C Lalor
- School of Engineering, Trinity Centre for Bioengineering, and Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
- Department of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Neuroscience, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, 14627, USA
| | - Denis Burnham
- The MARCS Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, 2527, Australia
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428
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Kalashnikova M, Burnham D. Infant-directed speech from seven to nineteen months has similar acoustic properties but different functions. JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE 2018; 45:1035-1053. [PMID: 29502549 DOI: 10.1017/s0305000917000629] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/08/2023]
Abstract
This longitudinal study assessed three acoustic components of maternal infant-directed speech (IDS) - pitch, affect, and vowel hyperarticulation - in relation to infants' age and their expressive vocabulary size. These three individual components were measured in IDS addressed to infants at 7, 9, 11, 15, and 19 months (N = 18). All three components were exaggerated at all ages in mothers' IDS compared to their adult-directed speech. Importantly, the only significant predictor of infants' expressive vocabulary size at 15 and 19 months was vowel hyperarticulation, but only at 9 months and beyond, not at 7 months, and not pitch or affect at any age. These results set apart vowel hyperarticulation in IDS to infants as the critical IDS component for vocabulary development. Thus IDS, specifically the degree of vowel hyperarticulation therein, is a vehicle by which parents can provide the most optimal speech quality for their infants' linguistic and communicative development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marina Kalashnikova
- The MARCS Institute for Brain,Behaviour and Development,Western Sydney University
| | - Denis Burnham
- The MARCS Institute for Brain,Behaviour and Development,Western Sydney University
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429
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Pinheiro-Chagas P, Daitch A, Parvizi J, Dehaene S. Brain Mechanisms of Arithmetic: A Crucial Role for Ventral Temporal Cortex. J Cogn Neurosci 2018; 30:1757-1772. [PMID: 30063177 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01319] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
Elementary arithmetic requires a complex interplay between several brain regions. The classical view, arising from fMRI, is that the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the superior parietal lobe (SPL) are the main hubs for arithmetic calculations. However, recent studies using intracranial electroencephalography have discovered a specific site, within the posterior inferior temporal cortex (pITG), that activates during visual perception of numerals, with widespread adjacent responses when numerals are used in calculation. Here, we reexamined the contribution of the IPS, SPL, and pITG to arithmetic by recording intracranial electroencephalography signals while participants solved addition problems. Behavioral results showed a classical problem size effect: RTs increased with the size of the operands. We then examined how high-frequency broadband (HFB) activity is modulated by problem size. As expected from previous fMRI findings, we showed that the total HFB activity in IPS and SPL sites increased with problem size. More surprisingly, pITG sites showed an initial burst of HFB activity that decreased as the operands got larger, yet with a constant integral over the whole trial, thus making these signals invisible to slow fMRI. Although parietal sites appear to have a more sustained function in arithmetic computations, the pITG may have a role of early identification of the problem difficulty, beyond merely digit recognition. Our results ask for a reevaluation of the current models of numerical cognition and reveal that the ventral temporal cortex contains regions specifically engaged in mathematical processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pedro Pinheiro-Chagas
- CEA DRF/12BM, INSERM, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay.,Stanford University
| | | | | | - Stanislas Dehaene
- CEA DRF/12BM, INSERM, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay.,Collège de France, Paris
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430
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Chernyak N, Harris PL, Cordes S. Explaining early moral hypocrisy: Numerical cognition promotes equal sharing behavior in preschool-aged children. Dev Sci 2018; 22:e12695. [PMID: 30058779 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12695] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/26/2017] [Accepted: 05/09/2018] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Recent work has documented that despite preschool-aged children's understanding of social norms surrounding sharing, they fail to share their resources equally in many contexts. Here we explored two hypotheses for this failure: an insufficient motivation hypothesis and an insufficient cognitive resources hypothesis. With respect to the latter, we specifically explored whether children's numerical cognition-their understanding of the cardinal principle-might underpin their abilities to share equally. In Experiment 1, preschoolers' numerical cognition fully mediated age-related changes in children's fair sharing. We found little support for the insufficient motivation hypothesis-children stated that they had shared fairly, and failures in sharing fairly were a reflection of their number knowledge. Numerical cognition did not relate to children's knowledge of the norms of equality (Experiment 2). Results suggest that the knowledge-behavior gap in fairness may be partly explained by the differences in cognitive skills required for conceptual and behavioral equality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nadia Chernyak
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of California, Irvine
| | - Paul L Harris
- Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
| | - Sara Cordes
- Department of Psychology, Boston College, Massachusetts
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431
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Pinheiro-Chagas P, Piazza M, Dehaene S. Decoding the processing stages of mental arithmetic with magnetoencephalography. Cortex 2018; 114:124-139. [PMID: 30177399 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.07.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/07/2017] [Revised: 05/25/2018] [Accepted: 07/16/2018] [Indexed: 01/24/2023]
Abstract
Elementary arithmetic is highly prevalent in our daily lives. However, despite decades of research, we are only beginning to understand how the brain solves simple calculations. Here, we applied machine learning techniques to magnetoencephalography (MEG) signals in an effort to decompose the successive processing stages and mental transformations underlying elementary arithmetic. Adults subjects verified single-digit addition and subtraction problems such as 3 + 2 = 9 in which each successive symbol was presented sequentially. MEG signals revealed a cascade of partially overlapping brain states. While the first operand could be transiently decoded above chance level, primarily based on its visual properties, the decoding of the second operand was more accurate and lasted longer. Representational similarity analyses suggested that this decoding rested on both visual and magnitude codes. We were also able to decode the operation type (additions vs. subtraction) during practically the entire trial after the presentation of the operation sign. At the decision stage, MEG indicated a fast and highly overlapping temporal dynamics for (1) identifying the proposed result, (2) judging whether it was correct or incorrect, and (3) pressing the response button. Surprisingly, however, the internally computed result could not be decoded. Our results provide a first comprehensive picture of the unfolding processing stages underlying arithmetic calculations at a single-trial level, and suggest that externally and internally generated neural codes may have different neural substrates.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pedro Pinheiro-Chagas
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, CEA DRF/I2BM, INSERM, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin Center, Gif/Yvette, France.
| | - Manuela Piazza
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
| | - Stanislas Dehaene
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, CEA DRF/I2BM, INSERM, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin Center, Gif/Yvette, France; Collège de France, 11 Place Marcelin Berthelot, Paris, France
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432
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Chern A, Tillmann B, Vaughan C, Gordon RL. New evidence of a rhythmic priming effect that enhances grammaticality judgments in children. J Exp Child Psychol 2018; 173:371-379. [PMID: 29778278 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2018.04.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/25/2017] [Revised: 04/02/2018] [Accepted: 04/13/2018] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
Musical rhythm and the grammatical structure of language share a surprising number of characteristics that may be intrinsically related in child development. The current study aimed to understand the potential influence of musical rhythmic priming on subsequent spoken grammar task performance in children with typical development who were native speakers of English. Participants (ages 5-8 years) listened to rhythmically regular and irregular musical sequences (within-participants design) followed by blocks of grammatically correct and incorrect sentences upon which they were asked to perform a grammaticality judgment task. Rhythmically regular musical sequences improved performance in grammaticality judgment compared with rhythmically irregular musical sequences. No such effect of rhythmic priming was found in two nonlinguistic control tasks, suggesting a neural overlap between rhythm processing and mechanisms recruited during grammar processing. These findings build on previous research investigating the effect of rhythmic priming by extending the paradigm to a different language, testing a younger population, and employing nonlanguage control tasks. These findings of an immediate influence of rhythm on grammar states (temporarily augmented grammaticality judgment performance) also converge with previous findings of associations between rhythm and grammar traits (stable generalized grammar abilities) in children. Taken together, the results of this study provide additional evidence for shared neural processing for language and music and warrant future investigations of potentially beneficial effects of innovative musical material on language processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alexander Chern
- Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN 37212, USA; Department of Otolaryngology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37212, USA; Program for Music, Mind and Society at Vanderbilt, Nashville, TN 37212, USA.
| | | | - Chloe Vaughan
- Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN 37212, USA; Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN 37212, USA
| | - Reyna L Gordon
- Department of Otolaryngology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN 37212, USA; Program for Music, Mind and Society at Vanderbilt, Nashville, TN 37212, USA; Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37212, USA.
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433
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The influence of understanding and having choice on children's prosocial behavior. Curr Opin Psychol 2018; 20:107-110. [DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.07.043] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2017] [Revised: 07/02/2017] [Accepted: 07/31/2017] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
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434
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Ferrara K, Furlong S, Park S, Landau B. Detailed Visual Memory Capacity Is Present Early in Childhood. Open Mind (Camb) 2017; 1:136-147. [PMID: 30931420 PMCID: PMC6436559 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/22/2017] [Accepted: 08/24/2017] [Indexed: 12/05/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous studies have shown that adults are able to remember more than 1,000 images with great detail. However, little is known about the development of this visual capacity, nor its presence early in life. This study tests the level of detail of young children's memory for a large number of items, adapting the method of Brady, Konkle, Alvarez, and Oliva (2008). Four- and six-year-old children were shown more than 100 images of everyday objects. They were then tested for recognition of familiar items in a binary decision task. The identity of the foil test item was manipulated in three conditions (Category, Exemplar, and State). Children demonstrated high accuracy across all conditions, remembering not only the basic-level category (Category), but also unique details (Exemplar), and information about position and arrangement of parts (State). These findings demonstrate that children spontaneously encode a high degree of visual detail. Early in life, visual memory exhibits high fidelity and extends over a large set of items.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sarah Furlong
- Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University
| | - Soojin Park
- Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University
- Department of Psychology, Yonsei University
| | - Barbara Landau
- Department of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University
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435
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On-line confidence monitoring during decision making. Cognition 2017; 171:112-121. [PMID: 29128659 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.11.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 43] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/08/2017] [Revised: 11/01/2017] [Accepted: 11/01/2017] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Humans can readily assess their degree of confidence in their decisions. Two models of confidence computation have been proposed: post hoc computation using post-decision variables and heuristics, versus online computation using continuous assessment of evidence throughout the decision-making process. Here, we arbitrate between these theories by continuously monitoring finger movements during a manual sequential decision-making task. Analysis of finger kinematics indicated that subjects kept separate online records of evidence and confidence: finger deviation continuously reflected the ongoing accumulation of evidence, whereas finger speed continuously reflected the momentary degree of confidence. Furthermore, end-of-trial finger speed predicted the post-decisional subjective confidence rating. These data indicate that confidence is computed on-line, throughout the decision process. Speed-confidence correlations were previously interpreted as a post-decision heuristics, whereby slow decisions decrease subjective confidence, but our results suggest an adaptive mechanism that involves the opposite causality: by slowing down when unconfident, participants gain time to improve their decisions.
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436
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Wood JN. Spontaneous Preference for Slowly Moving Objects in Visually Naïve Animals. Open Mind (Camb) 2017. [DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/13/2023] Open
Abstract
To perceive the world successfully, newborns need certain types of visual experiences. The development of object recognition, for example, requires visual experience with slowly moving objects. To date, however, it is unknown whether newborns actively seek out the best visual experiences for developing object recognition. To address this question, I used an automated controlled-rearing method to examine whether visually naïve animals (newborn chicks) seek out slowly moving objects. Despite receiving equal exposure to slowly and to quickly rotating objects, the majority of the chicks developed a preference for slowly rotating objects. This preference was robust, producing large effect sizes across objects, experiments, and successive test days. These results indicate that newborn brains rapidly develop mechanisms for orienting young animals toward optimal visual experiences, thus facilitating the development of object recognition. This study also demonstrates that automation can be a valuable tool for studying the origins and development of visual preferences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Justin N. Wood
- Department of Psychology, University of Southern California
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437
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Mollica F, Piantadosi ST. How Data Drive Early Word Learning: A Cross-Linguistic Waiting Time Analysis. Open Mind (Camb) 2017. [DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022] Open
Abstract
The extent to which word learning is delayed by maturation as opposed to accumulating data is a longstanding question in language acquisition. Further, the precise way in which data influence learning on a large scale is unknown—experimental results reveal that children can rapidly learn words from single instances as well as by aggregating ambiguous information across multiple situations. We analyze Wordbank, a large cross-linguistic dataset of word acquisition norms, using a statistical waiting time model to quantify the role of data in early language learning, building off Hidaka ( 2013 ). We find that the model both fits and accurately predicts the shape of children’s growth curves. Further analyses of model parameters suggest a primarily data-driven account of early word learning. The parameters of the model directly characterize both the amount of data required and the rate at which informative data occurs. With high statistical certainty, words require on the order of ∼ 10 learning instances, which occur on average once every two months. Our method is extremely simple, statistically principled, and broadly applicable to modeling data-driven learning effects in development.
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438
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Rugani R, Betti S, Ceccarini F, Sartori L. Act on Numbers: Numerical Magnitude Influences Selection and Kinematics of Finger Movement. Front Psychol 2017; 8:1481. [PMID: 28912743 PMCID: PMC5582418 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01481] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/21/2017] [Accepted: 08/17/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
In the past decade hand kinematics has been reliably adopted for investigating cognitive processes and disentangling debated topics. One of the most controversial issues in numerical cognition literature regards the origin - cultural vs. genetically driven - of the mental number line (MNL), oriented from left (small numbers) to right (large numbers). To date, the majority of studies have investigated this effect by means of response times, whereas studies considering more culturally unbiased measures such as kinematic parameters are rare. Here, we present a new paradigm that combines a "free response" task with the kinematic analysis of movement. Participants were seated in front of two little soccer goals placed on a table, one on the left and one on the right side. They were presented with left- or right-directed arrows and they were instructed to kick a small ball with their right index toward the goal indicated by the arrow. In a few test trials participants were presented also with a small (2) or a large (8) number, and they were allowed to choose the kicking direction. Participants performed more left responses with the small number and more right responses with the large number. The whole kicking movement was segmented in two temporal phases in order to make a hand kinematics' fine-grained analysis. The Kick Preparation and Kick Finalization phases were selected on the basis of peak trajectory deviation from the virtual midline between the two goals. Results show an effect of both small and large numbers on action execution timing. Participants were faster to finalize the action when responding to small numbers toward the left and to large number toward the right. Here, we provide the first experimental demonstration which highlights how numerical processing affects action execution in a new and not-overlearned context. The employment of this innovative and unbiased paradigm will permit to disentangle the role of nature and culture in shaping the direction of MNL and the role of finger in the acquisition of numerical skills. Last but not least, similar paradigms will allow to determine how cognition can influence action execution.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rosa Rugani
- Department of General Psychology, University of PadovaPadova, Italy
| | | | | | - Luisa Sartori
- Department of General Psychology, University of PadovaPadova, Italy
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439
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Colling LJ, Noble HL, Goswami U. Neural Entrainment and Sensorimotor Synchronization to the Beat in Children with Developmental Dyslexia: An EEG Study. Front Neurosci 2017; 11:360. [PMID: 28747870 PMCID: PMC5506338 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2017.00360] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2016] [Accepted: 06/08/2017] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Tapping in time to a metronome beat (hereafter beat synchronization) shows considerable variability in child populations, and individual differences in beat synchronization are reliably related to reading development. Children with developmental dyslexia show impairments in beat synchronization. These impairments may reflect deficiencies in auditory perception of the beat which in turn affect auditory-motor mapping, or may reflect an independent motor deficit. Here, we used a new methodology in EEG based on measuring beat-related steady-state evoked potentials (SS-EPs, Nozaradan et al., 2015) in an attempt to disentangle neural sensory and motor contributions to behavioral beat synchronization in children with dyslexia. Children tapped with both their left and right hands to every second beat of a metronome pulse delivered at 2.4 Hz, or listened passively to the beat. Analyses of preferred phase in EEG showed that the children with dyslexia had a significantly different preferred phase compared to control children in all conditions. Regarding SS-EPs, the groups differed significantly for the passive Auditory listening condition at 2.4 Hz, and showed a trend toward a difference in the Right hand tapping condition at 3.6 Hz (sensorimotor integration measure). The data suggest that neural rhythmic entrainment is atypical in children with dyslexia for both an auditory beat and during sensorimotor coupling (tapping). The data are relevant to a growing literature suggesting that rhythm-based interventions may help language processing in children with developmental disorders of language learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lincoln J Colling
- Department of Psychology, Centre for Neuroscience in Education, University of CambridgeCambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Hannah L Noble
- Department of Psychology, Centre for Neuroscience in Education, University of CambridgeCambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Usha Goswami
- Department of Psychology, Centre for Neuroscience in Education, University of CambridgeCambridge, United Kingdom
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440
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Mathieu R, Epinat-Duclos J, Léone J, Fayol M, Thevenot C, Prado J. Hippocampal spatial mechanisms relate to the development of arithmetic symbol processing in children. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2017. [PMID: 28648549 PMCID: PMC6969119 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2017.06.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 26] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Understanding the meaning of abstract mathematical symbols is a cornerstone of arithmetic learning in children. Studies have long focused on the role of spatial intuitions in the processing of numerals. However, it has been argued that such intuitions may also underlie symbols that convey fundamental arithmetic concepts, such as arithmetic operators. In the present cross-sectional study, we used fMRI to investigate how and when associations between arithmetic operators and brain regions processing spatial information emerge in children from 3rd to 10th grade. We found that the mere perception of a ‘+’ sign elicited grade-related increases of spatial activity in the right hippocampus. That is, merely perceiving ‘+’ signs – without any operands – elicited enhanced hippocampal activity after around 7th grade (12–13 years old). In these children, hippocampal activity in response to a ‘+’ sign was further correlated with the degree to which calculation performance was facilitated by the preview of that sign before an addition problem, an effect termed operator-priming. Grade-related increases of hippocampal spatial activity were operation-specific because they were not observed with ‘×’ signs, which might evoke rote retrieval rather than numerical manipulation. Our study raises the possibility that hippocampal spatial mechanisms help build associations between some arithmetic operators and space throughout age and/or education.
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Affiliation(s)
- Romain Mathieu
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) & Université de Lyon, Bron, France; Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Education, Université de Genève, 1205 Genève, Switzerland.
| | - Justine Epinat-Duclos
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) & Université de Lyon, Bron, France
| | - Jessica Léone
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) & Université de Lyon, Bron, France
| | - Michel Fayol
- Université de Clermont Auvergne & CNRS, 63037 Clermont-Ferrand, France
| | - Catherine Thevenot
- Institut de Psychologie, Université de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Jérôme Prado
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) & Université de Lyon, Bron, France.
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441
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Mathieu R, Epinat-Duclos J, Sigovan M, Breton A, Cheylus A, Fayol M, Thevenot C, Prado J. What's Behind a “+” Sign? Perceiving an Arithmetic Operator Recruits Brain Circuits for Spatial Orienting. Cereb Cortex 2017; 28:1673-1684. [DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhx064] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2016] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Romain Mathieu
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Lyon 1, Bron, France
- Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Education, Université de Genève, 1205 Genève, Switzerland
| | - Justine Epinat-Duclos
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Lyon 1, Bron, France
| | - Monica Sigovan
- Laboratoire CREATIS, Université Lyon 1, CNRS/INSERM, INSA-Lyon & HCL, Lyon, France
| | - Audrey Breton
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Lyon 1, Bron, France
| | - Anne Cheylus
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Lyon 1, Bron, France
| | - Michel Fayol
- Clermont II & CNRS, UFR de Psychologie, LAPSCO, Université Blaise Pascal,
63037 Clermont-Ferrand, France
| | - Catherine Thevenot
- Institut de Psychologie, Université de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Jérôme Prado
- Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, UMR 5304, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Lyon 1, Bron, France
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442
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Pinheiro-Chagas P, Dotan D, Piazza M, Dehaene S. Finger Tracking Reveals the Covert Stages of Mental Arithmetic. Open Mind (Camb) 2017; 1:30-41. [PMID: 30931419 PMCID: PMC6436574 DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/13/2016] [Accepted: 07/23/2016] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
We introduce a novel method capable of dissecting the succession of processing stages underlying mental arithmetic, thus revealing how two numbers are transformed into a third. We asked adults to point to the result of single-digit additions and subtractions on a number line, while their finger trajectory was constantly monitored. We found that the two operands are processed serially: the finger first points toward the larger operand, then slowly veers toward the correct result. This slow deviation unfolds proportionally to the size of the smaller operand, in both additions and subtractions. We also observed a transient operator effect: a plus sign attracted the finger to the right and a minus sign to the left and a transient activation of the absolute value of the subtrahend. These findings support a model whereby addition and subtraction are computed by a stepwise displacement on the mental number line, starting with the larger number and incrementally adding or subtracting the smaller number.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pedro Pinheiro-Chagas
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, CEA DRF/I2BM, INSERM, Université Paris-Sud,
Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin center, France
- École Doctorale Cerveau-Cognition-Comportement, Université Pierre et Marie Curie,
France
- Collège de France
| | - Dror Dotan
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, CEA DRF/I2BM, INSERM, Université Paris-Sud,
Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin center, France
- Language and Brain Lab, School of Education and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv
University
| | | | - Stanislas Dehaene
- Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, CEA DRF/I2BM, INSERM, Université Paris-Sud,
Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin center, France
- Collège de France
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