1
|
Blanco NJ, Sloutsky VM. Exploration, exploitation, and development: Developmental shifts in decision-making. Child Dev 2024; 95:1287-1298. [PMID: 38314828 PMCID: PMC11223977 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.14070] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/07/2024]
Abstract
Decision-making requires balancing exploration with exploitation, yet children are highly exploratory, with exploration decreasing with development. Less is known about what drives these changes. We examined the development of decision-making in 188 three- to eight-year-old children (M = 64 months; 98 girls) and 26 adults (M = 19 years; 13 women). Children were recruited from ethnically diverse suburban middle-class neighborhoods of Columbus, Ohio, USA. Results indicate that mature reward-based choices emerge relatively late in development, with children tending to over-explore. Computational modeling suggests that this exploration is systematic rather than random, as children tend to avoid repeating choices made on the previous trial. This pattern of exploration (reminiscent of novelty preference) decreased with development, whereas the tendency to exploit increased.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Nathaniel J Blanco
- Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA
| | | |
Collapse
|
2
|
Vaisarova J, Lucca K. A developmental account of curiosity and creativity. Behav Brain Sci 2024; 47:e116. [PMID: 38770858 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x23003485] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/22/2024]
Abstract
Ivancovsky et al.'s Novelty-Seeking Model suggests several mechanisms that might underlie developmental change in creativity and curiosity. We discuss how these implications both do and do not align with extant developmental findings, suggest two further elements that can provide a more complete developmental account, and discuss current methodological barriers to formulating an integrated developmental model of curiosity and creativity.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Julie Vaisarova
- Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA ://www.emergingmindslab.org
| | - Kelsey Lucca
- Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA ://www.emergingmindslab.org
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Leckey S, Bhagath S, Johnson EG, Ghetti S. Attention to novelty interferes with toddlers' emerging memory decision-making. Child Dev 2024; 95:98-113. [PMID: 37409734 PMCID: PMC10770300 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13959] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2022] [Revised: 05/18/2023] [Accepted: 06/08/2023] [Indexed: 07/07/2023]
Abstract
Memory decision-making in 26- to 32-month-olds was investigated using visual-paired comparison paradigms, requiring toddlers to select familiar stimuli (Active condition) or view familiar and novel stimuli (Passive condition). In Experiment 1 (N = 108, 54.6% female, 62% White; replication N = 98), toddlers with higher accuracy in the Active condition showed reduced novelty preference in that condition, but not in the Passive condition (d = -.11). In Experiment 2 (N = 78; 52.6% female; 70.5% White), a brief 5% increase in target size boosted gaze transitions across conditions (d = .50) and accuracy in the Active condition (d = .53). Overall, evidence suggests that better attentional distribution can support decision-making. Research was conducted between 2014 and 2020 in Northern California.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Sarah Leckey
- Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis
| | - Shefali Bhagath
- Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis
| | | | - Simona Ghetti
- Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Kim J, Singh S, Vales C, Keebler E, Fisher AV, Thiessen ED. Staying and Returning dynamics of young children's attention. Dev Sci 2023; 26:e13410. [PMID: 37211716 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13410] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2021] [Revised: 01/26/2023] [Accepted: 04/12/2023] [Indexed: 05/23/2023]
Abstract
In this paper, we decompose selective sustained attending behavior into components of continuous attention maintenance and attentional transitions and study how each of these components develops in young children. Our results in two experiments suggest that changes in children's ability to return attention to a target locus after distraction ("Returning") play a crucial role in the development of selective sustained attention between the ages of 3.5-6 years, perhaps to a greater extent than changes in the ability to continuously maintain attention on the target ("Staying"). We further distinguish Returning from the behavior of transitioning attention away from task (i.e., becoming distracted) and investigate the relative contributions of bottom-up and top-down factors on these different types of attentional transitions. Overall, these results (a) suggest the importance of understanding the cognitive process of transitioning attention for understanding selective sustained attention and its development, (b) provide an empirical paradigm within which to study this process, and (c) begin to characterize basic features of this process, namely its development and its relative dependence on top-down and bottom-up influences on attention. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Young children exhibited an endogenously ability, Returning, to preferentially transition attention to task-relevant information over task-irrelevant information. Selective sustained attention and its development were decomposed into Returning and Staying, or task-selective attention maintenance, using novel eye-tracking-based measures. Returning improved between the ages of 3.5-6 years, to a greater extent than Staying. Improvements in Returning supported improvements in selective sustained attention between these ages.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Jaeah Kim
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Shashank Singh
- Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Catarina Vales
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Emily Keebler
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Anna V Fisher
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| | - Erik D Thiessen
- Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Dubourg E, Thouzeau V, de Dampierre C, Mogoutov A, Baumard N. Exploratory preferences explain the human fascination for imaginary worlds in fictional stories. Sci Rep 2023; 13:8657. [PMID: 37246187 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-35151-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2022] [Accepted: 05/13/2023] [Indexed: 05/30/2023] Open
Abstract
Imaginary worlds are present and often central in many of the most culturally successful modern narrative fictions, be it in novels (e.g., Harry Potter), movies (e.g., Star Wars), video games (e.g., The Legend of Zelda), graphic novels (e.g., One Piece) and TV series (e.g., Game of Thrones). We propose that imaginary worlds are popular because they activate exploratory preferences that evolved to help us navigate the real world and find new fitness-relevant information. Therefore, we hypothesize that the attraction to imaginary worlds is intrinsically linked to the desire to explore novel environments and that both are influenced by the same underlying factors. Notably, the inter-individual and cross-cultural variability of the preference for imaginary worlds should follow the inter-individual and cross-cultural variability of exploratory preferences (with the personality trait Openness-to-experience, age, sex, and ecological conditions). We test these predictions with both experimental and computational methods. For experimental tests, we run a pre-registered online experiment about movie preferences (N = 230). For computational tests, we leverage two large cultural datasets, namely the Internet Movie Database (N = 9424 movies) and the Movie Personality Dataset (N = 3.5 million participants), and use machine-learning algorithms (i.e., random forest and topic modeling). In all, consistent with how the human preference for spatial exploration adaptively varies, we provide empirical evidence that imaginary worlds appeal more to more explorative people, people higher in Openness-to-experience, younger individuals, males, and individuals living in more affluent environments. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the cultural evolution of narrative fiction and, more broadly, the evolution of human exploratory preferences.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Edgar Dubourg
- Institut Jean Nicod, Département d'études cognitives, Ecole normale supérieure, Université PSL, EHESS, CNRS, Paris, France.
| | - Valentin Thouzeau
- Institut Jean Nicod, Département d'études cognitives, Ecole normale supérieure, Université PSL, EHESS, CNRS, Paris, France
| | - Charles de Dampierre
- Institut Jean Nicod, Département d'études cognitives, Ecole normale supérieure, Université PSL, EHESS, CNRS, Paris, France
| | - Andrei Mogoutov
- Institut Jean Nicod, Département d'études cognitives, Ecole normale supérieure, Université PSL, EHESS, CNRS, Paris, France
| | - Nicolas Baumard
- Institut Jean Nicod, Département d'études cognitives, Ecole normale supérieure, Université PSL, EHESS, CNRS, Paris, France
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Roark CL, Lescht E, Wray AH, Chandrasekaran B. Auditory and visual category learning in children and adults. Dev Psychol 2023; 59:963-975. [PMID: 36862449 PMCID: PMC10164074 DOI: 10.1037/dev0001525] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/03/2023]
Abstract
Categories are fundamental to everyday life and the ability to learn new categories is relevant across the lifespan. Categories are ubiquitous across modalities, supporting complex processes such as object recognition and speech perception. Prior work has proposed that different categories may engage learning systems with unique developmental trajectories. There is a limited understanding of how perceptual and cognitive development influences learning as prior studies have examined separate participants in a single modality. The current study presents a comprehensive assessment of category learning in 8-12-year-old children (12 female; 34 white, 1 Asian, 1 more than one race; M household income $85-$100 K) and 18-61-year-old adults (13 female; 32 white, 10 Black or African American, 4 Asian, 2 more than one race, 1 other; M household income $40-55 K) in a broad sample collected online from the United States. Across multiple sessions, participants learned categories across modalities (auditory, visual) that engage different learning systems (explicit, procedural). Unsurprisingly, adults outperformed children across all tasks. However, this enhanced performance was asymmetrical across categories and modalities. Adults far outperformed children in learning visual explicit categories and auditory procedural categories, with fewer differences across development for other types of categories. Adults' general benefit over children was due to enhanced information processing, while their superior performance for visual explicit and auditory procedural categories was associated with less cautious correct responses. These results demonstrate an interaction between perceptual and cognitive development that influences learning of categories that may correspond to the development of real-world skills such as speech perception and reading. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Casey L. Roark
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Communication Science and Disorders
- Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
| | - Erica Lescht
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Communication Science and Disorders
| | - Amanda Hampton Wray
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Communication Science and Disorders
- Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
| | - Bharath Chandrasekaran
- University of Pittsburgh, Department of Communication Science and Disorders
- Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
Kean D, Renner E, Atkinson M, Caldwell CA. Capuchin monkeys learn to use information equally well from individual exploration and social demonstration. Anim Cogn 2023; 26:435-450. [PMID: 36064832 PMCID: PMC9950169 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01654-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/19/2021] [Revised: 05/13/2022] [Accepted: 07/02/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
The limited evidence of complex culture in non-human primates contrasts strikingly with human behaviour. This may be because non-human primates fail to use information acquired socially as effectively as they use information acquired individually. Here, monkeys were trained on a stimulus discrimination task with a win-stay, lose-shift (WSLS) reward structure. In a social learning condition, the experimenter performed an information trial by choosing between the available stimuli; in an individual condition, monkeys made this choice themselves. The monkeys' subsequent test trials displayed the same stimulus array. They were rewarded for repetition of rewarded ('win-stay') and avoidance of unrewarded ('lose-shift') information trial selections. Nine monkeys reached our pre-determined performance criterion on the initial two-stimulus stage. Their ability to generalise the WSLS strategy was then evaluated by transfer to a three-stimulus stage. Minimal differences were found in information use between the social and individual conditions on two-stimuli. However, a bias was found towards repetition of the information trial, regardless of information source condition or whether the information trial selection was rewarded. Proficient subjects were found to generalise the strategy to three-stimuli following rewarded information trials, but performed at chance on unrewarded. Again, this was not found to vary by source condition. Overall, results suggest no fundamental barrier to non-human primates' use of information from a social source. However, the apparent struggle to learn from the absence of rewards hints at a difficulty with using information acquired from unsuccessful attempts; this could be linked to the limited evidence for cumulative culture in non-human primates.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Donna Kean
- Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK.
- Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende Product Ontwikkeling (APOPO), Sokoine University of Agriculture, PO Box 3078, Morogoro, Tanzania.
| | - Elizabeth Renner
- Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK
- Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK
| | - Mark Atkinson
- Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK
- School of Management and School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, KY16 9AJ, UK
| | - Christine A Caldwell
- Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA, UK
| |
Collapse
|
8
|
Li J, Deng SW. Facilitation and interference effects of the multisensory context on learning: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2022; 87:1334-1352. [DOI: 10.1007/s00426-022-01733-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2022] [Accepted: 08/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
|
9
|
Liquin EG, Gopnik A. Children are more exploratory and learn more than adults in an approach-avoid task. Cognition 2021; 218:104940. [PMID: 34715584 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104940] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/21/2020] [Revised: 08/31/2021] [Accepted: 10/08/2021] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
Intuitively, children appear to be more exploratory than adults, and this exploration seems to help children learn,. However, there have been few clear tests of these ideas. We test whether exploration and learning change across development using a task that presents a "learning trap." In this task, exploitation-maximizing immediate reward and avoiding costs-may lead the learner to draw incorrect conclusions, while exploration may lead to better learning but be more costly. In Studies 1, 2, and 3 we find that preschoolers and early school-aged children explore more than adults and learn the true structure of the environment better. Study 3 demonstrates that children explore more than adults even though they, like adults, predict that exploration will be costly, and it shows that exploration and learning are correlated. Study 4 shows that children's and adults' learning depends on the evidence they generate during exploration: children exposed to adult-like evidence learn like adults, and adults exposed to child-like evidence learn like children. Together, these studies support the idea that children may be more exploratory than adults, and this increased exploration influences learning.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Emily G Liquin
- Department of Psychology, 2121 Berkeley Way, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
| | - Alison Gopnik
- Department of Psychology, 2121 Berkeley Way, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Markant J, Amso D. Context and attention control determine whether attending to competing information helps or hinders learning in school-aged children. WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS. COGNITIVE SCIENCE 2021; 13:e1577. [PMID: 34498382 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1577] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/28/2021] [Revised: 08/05/2021] [Accepted: 08/18/2021] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
Attention control regulates efficient processing of goal-relevant information by suppressing interference from irrelevant competing inputs while also flexibly allocating attention across relevant inputs according to task demands. Research has established that developing attention control skills promote effective learning by minimizing distractions from task-irrelevant competing information. Additional research also suggests that competing contextual information can provide meaningful input for learning and should not always be ignored. Instead, attending to competing information that is relevant to task goals can facilitate and broaden the scope of children's learning. We review this past research examining effects of attending to task-relevant and task-irrelevant competing information on learning outcomes, focusing on relations between visual attention and learning in childhood. We then present a synthesis argument that complex interactions across learning goals, the contexts of learning environments and tasks, and developing attention control mechanisms will determine whether attending to competing information helps or hinders learning. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Attention Psychology > Learning Psychology > Development and Aging.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Julie Markant
- Department of Psychology, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
- Tulane Brain Institute, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
| | - Dima Amso
- Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA
| |
Collapse
|