Developmental changes in imitation from television during infancy

Sleep-dependent memory consolidation of televised content in infants

Infants face the constant challenge of selecting information for encoding and storage from a continuous incoming stream of data. Sleep might help in this process by selectively consolidating new memory traces that are likely to be of future relevance. Using a deferred imitation paradigm and an experimental design, we asked whether 15- and 24-month-old infants (N = 105) who slept soon after encoding a televised demonstration of target actions would show higher imitation scores (retention) after a 24-h delay than same-aged infants who stayed awake for ≥4 h after encoding. In light of infants' well-known difficulties in learning and remembering information from screens, we tested if increasing the relevance of the televised content via standardised caregiver verbalisations might yield the highest imitation scores in the sleep condition. Regardless of sleep condition, 24-month-olds exhibited retention of target actions while 15-month-olds consistently failed to do so. For 24-month-olds, temporal recall was facilitated by sleep, but not by parental verbalisations. Correlational analyses revealed that more time asleep within 4 h after encoding was associated with better retention of the target actions and their temporal order in 24-months-olds. These results suggest that sleep facilitates memory consolidation of screen-based content in late infancy and that this effect might not hinge on caregivers' verbal engagement during viewing.

Exploring the use of projected videos to test action matching from different perspectives in dogs

Dogs trained with the Do as I Do method can imitate human actions upon request, but their ability to match actions observed from different perspectives remains unknown. The use of 2D video stimuli may enable researchers to systematically manipulate the perspective from which demonstrations are observed, thereby widening the range of methods available to study cognitive skills related to imitation. In this study, we explore the possibility of using 2D stimuli to test action matching in dogs, including when demonstrations are seen from different perspectives. We examined two dogs' imitative performance using videos projected on a screen; while, the owner interacted with the dog remotely through an online meeting software. The dogs were first trained to match human actions seen on a screen frontally, and then were tested when the projected demonstrations were seen frontally, from the side, and from above. Results revealed that both dogs matched the demonstrated actions from frontal and, notably, also from side perspectives, at least to some extent, consistent with familiarity of their daily interactions with humans. However, action matching from an above perspective presented challenges, indicating the potential influence of observational experience and highlighting the importance of perspective manipulation when investigating imitation abilities. These findings show that it is possible to use 2D videos to test imitation in dogs, thereby expanding the potential methodologies to study imitation and other related cognitive skills.

No evidence for adult smartphone use affecting attribution of communicative intention in toddlers: Online imitation study using the Sock Ball Task

Adults infer others' communicative intentions, or lack thereof, from various types of information. Young children may be initially limited to attributions based on a small set of ostensive signals. It is unknown when richer pragmatic inferences about communicative intentions emerge in development. We sought novel type of evidence for such inferences in 17-to-19-month-olds. We hypothesized that toddlers recognize adults' smartphone use in face-to-face interactions as incongruous with ostension and would rely on this interpretation when inferring the communicative intention of a model in a new imitation task conducted entirely online, dubbed the Sock Ball Task. In Experiment 1 with a between-subject design, we tested the hypothesis by assessing toddlers' (N = 48) imitation of sub-efficient means and the goal-outcome presented by a model, who interrupted her ostensive demonstration either by using a smartphone or by fiddling with her wristwatch, depending on the condition. We expected toddlers to imitate the sub-efficient means more faithfully in the wristwatch condition than in the smartphone condition. But there was no significant effect of condition on imitation of neither means nor goal. Thus, our hypothesis was not borne out by the results. In Experiment 2, using a within-subject design, we first assessed toddlers' (N = 24) performance in a no-demonstration baseline and then again after a no-disruption ostensive demonstration. In all three conditions with ostensive demonstration (Experiment 1: smartphone, wristwatch; Experiment 2: no-disruption), toddlers produced the demonstrated sub-efficient means significantly above the baseline level. In the no-disruption condition, goals were also imitated significantly above the baseline level. We conclude that the Sock Ball Task is a valid research tool for studying toddler imitation of novel means actions with objects. We end by discussing suggestions for improving the task in future studies.

Children's suggestibility for neutral arbitrary actions in the context of norm violations

This study investigated children's false memories for neutral arbitrary actions. Five- to six-year-olds (N = 32) were taught four arbitrary actions, each following specific rules. The children then watched a televised adult performing eight actions: the four familiar actions while violating one aspect of each rule script and four unfamiliar actions. Suggestive and non-suggestive questions about all witnessed actions were asked, followed by forced-choice test questions to measure the false memory effect. The likelihood of forming false memories was higher in the suggestive condition than in the non-suggestive condition. There was no effect of previously acquired knowledge about the rules of the actions and no interaction between rule knowledge and suggestion. The results are discussed in light of previous findings in related fields of false memory research.

Social attention and social-emotional modulation of attention in Angelman syndrome: an eye-tracking study

Individuals with Angelman syndrome (AS) present with severe intellectual disability alongside a social phenotype characterised by social communication difficulties and an increased drive for social engagement. As the social phenotype in this condition is poorly understood, we examined patterns of social attention and social modulation of attention in AS. Twenty-four individuals with AS and twenty-one young children with similar mental age were shown videos featuring unfamiliar actors who performed simple actions across two conditions: a playful condition, in which the actor showed positive facial emotions, and a neutral condition, in which the actor showed a neutral facial expression. During the passive observation of the videos, participants' proportion of time spent watching the two areas of interest (faces and actions) was examined using eye-tracking technology. We found that the playful condition elicited increased proportion of fixations duration to the actor's face compared to the neutral condition similarly across groups. Additionally, the proportion of fixations duration to the action area was similar across groups in the two conditions. However, children with AS looked towards the actor's face for a shorter duration compared to the comparison group across conditions. This pattern of similarities and differences provides novel insight on the complex social phenotype of children with AS.

Effects of screen exposure on young children's cognitive development: A review

The past decade has witnessed a rapid increase in the use of screen media in families, and infants are exposed to screens at younger ages than ever before. The objective of this review is twofold: (1) to understand the correlates and demographic factors determining exposure to screens, including interactive screens, when available, and (2) to study the effects of watching screens and using touchscreens on cognitive development, during the first 3 years of life. We argue that the effects of screen viewing depend mostly on contextual aspects of the viewing rather than on the quantity of viewing. That context includes the behavior of adult caregivers during viewing, the watched content in relation to the child's age, the interactivity of the screen and whether the screen is in the background or not. Depending on the context, screen viewing can have positive, neutral or negative effects on infants' cognition.

Raising the Child-Do Screen Media Help or Hinder? The Quality over Quantity Hypothesis

Screen media are ubiquitous in human life across all age, cultural and socioeconomic groups. The ceaseless and dynamic growth of technological possibilities has given rise to questions regarding their effect on the well-being of children. Research in this area largely consists of cross-sectional studies; experimental and randomized studies are rare, which makes drawing causative conclusions difficult. However, the prevailing approach towards the use of screen media by children has focused on time limitations. The emerging evidence supports a more nuanced perspective. It appears that the older the child, the more important how the screen media are used becomes. Concentrating on the quality of the screen, time has become increasingly relevant in the recent COVID-19 pandemic, which necessitated a transfer of educational and social functioning from real-life to the digital world. With this review, we aimed at gathering current knowledge on the correlations of different screen media use and development outcomes, as well as providing an overview of potential benefits that new technologies may provide to the pediatric population. To summarize, if one cannot evade screen time in children, how can we use it for children's maximum advantage?

Infants' Prefrontal Hemodynamic Responses and Functional Connectivity During Joint Attention in an Interactive-Live Setting

The present study examined cerebral hemodynamic responses and functional connectivity during joint attention either initiated by infants (Initiating Joint Attention, IJA condition) or by their partner (Responding to Joint Attention, RJA condition). To capture responses to natural social cues in infants aged 7–12 months using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), we employed an interactive-live paradigm for IJA and RJA. During the measurement, an adult sat facing an infant, and objects, such as small stuffed animals, paired with sound toys were presented to the right or left side of the screen. In the RJA condition, the adult gazed at the infants' eyes and then to the objects to encourage the infants to follow the adult's gaze. On the other hand, in the IJA condition, the adult followed the infant's gaze as it shifted to the presented object. Our results indicate that the concentration of oxy-Hb in the bilateral ventral prefrontal region had significantly decreased, then followed by an increase in the right dorsal prefrontal region in the RJA. In addition, a selective activation in the bilateral dorsal prefrontal region was seen in the IJA condition. Moreover, the infants exhibited increased functional connectivity especially within the right ventral prefrontal region during RJA condition when compared with IJA conditions. These findings suggest that RJA and IJA recruit specific brain networks localized in the prefrontal cortex of infants.

Can infants use video to update mental representations of absent objects?

Before their second birthday, infants can update their knowledge based on what someone tells them, but can they do so based on what a video shows them? The current study explored whether infants can update their representation of an absent object's properties after seeing a video of something happening to it, following seminal work showing that they can update their representation after being told about something happening to it (Ganea et al., 2007). It thus adapted an existing paradigm for testing infants' understanding of references to absent objects (using language) to investigate a different symbolic medium (video). Twenty-two-month-olds first played with a toy and later saw on video that the toy underwent a change in state while they were out of the room. Infants in the current study did not subsequently identify the toy based on this new information, whereas those in previous research did. Infants this age thus appear less likely to update their representation of an absent object's properties using video than using language. This result is consistent with the possibility that infants may understand the representational function of symbolic objects later in development than they understand the representational function of language. It also aligns with evidence of the video deficit in which infants learn less effectively from video than from firsthand experience.

The early ontogeny of infants' imitation of on screen humans and robots

Traditionally, infants have learned how to interact with objects in their environment through direct observations of adults and peers. In recent decades these models have been available over different media, and this has introduced non-human agents to infants' learning environments. Humanoid robots are increasingly portrayed as social agents in on screen, but the degree to which infants are capable of observational learning from screen-based robots is unknown. The current study thus investigated how well 1- to 3-year-olds (N = 230) could imitate on-screen robots relative to on-screen and live humans. Participants exhibited an imitation deficit for robots that varied with age. Furthermore, the well-known video deficit did not replicate as expected, and was weak and transient relative to past research. Together, the findings documented here suggest that infants are learning from media in ways that differ from past generations, but that this new learning is nuanced when novel technologies are involved.

Infants scan static and dynamic facial expressions differently

Despite being inherently dynamic phenomena, much of our understanding of how infants attend and scan facial expressions is based on static face stimuli. Here we investigate how six-, nine-, and twelve-month infants allocate their visual attention toward dynamic-interactive videos of the six basic emotional expressions, and compare their responses with static images of the same stimuli. We find infants show clear differences in how they attend and scan dynamic and static expressions, looking longer toward the dynamic-face and lower-face regions. Infants across all age groups show differential interest in expressions, and show precise scanning of regions "diagnostic" for emotion recognition. These data also indicate that infants' attention toward dynamic expressions develops over the first year of life, including relative increases in interest and scanning precision toward some negative facial expressions (e.g., anger, fear, and disgust).

Sharing Experiences in Infancy: From Primary Intersubjectivity to Shared Intentionality

We contrast two theses that make different assumptions about the developmental onset of human-unique sociality. The primary intersubjectivity thesis (PIT) argues that humans relate to each other in distinct ways from the beginning of life, as is shown by newborns' participation in face-to-face encounters or "primary intersubjectivity." According to this thesis, humans' innate relational capacity is the seedbed from which all subsequent social-emotional and social-cognitive developments continuously emerge. The shared intentionality thesis (SIT) states that human-unique forms of interaction develop at 9-12 months of age, when infants put their heads together with others in acts of object-focused joint attention and simple collaborative activities. According to this thesis, human-unique cognition emerges rapidly with the advent of mind-reading capacities that evolved specifically for the purpose of coordination. In this paper, we first contrast the two theses and then sketch the outlines of an account that unifies their strengths. This unified account endorses the PIT's recognition of the fundamental importance of primary intersubjectivity. Any act of sharing experiences is founded on the communicative capacity that is already displayed by young infants in primary intersubjectivity. At the same time, we question the PIT's interpretation that dyadic encounters have the triadic structure of joint attention. Lastly, we draw on empirical work on the development of joint attention, imitation, and social referencing that serves as evidence that primary intersubjectivity continuously unfolds into the capacity for triadic joint attention.

Toddlers Prefer Adults as Informants: 2- and 3-Year-Olds' Use of and Attention to Pointing Gestures From Peer and Adult Partners

Two- and 3-year-old children (N = 96) were tested in an object-choice task with video presentations of peer and adult partners. An immersive, semi-interactive procedure enabled both the close matching of adult and peer conditions and the combination of participants' choice behavior with looking time measures. Children were more likely to use information provided by adults. As the effect was more pronounced in the younger age-group, the observed bias may fade during toddlerhood. As there were no differences in children's propensity to follow peer and adult gestures with their gaze, these findings provide some of the earliest evidence to date that young children take an interlocutor's age into account when judging ostensively communicated testimony.

Touchscreens for Whom? Working Memory and Age Moderate the Impact of Contingency on Toddlers' Transfer From Video

Toddlers exhibit poor transfer between video and real-world contexts. Contingently responsive video such as that found in touchscreen apps appears to assist transfer for some toddlers but not others. This study investigated the extent to which toddlers' working memory moderates the impact of contingency on toddler's transfer of learning from video. Toddlers (24–36 months; N = 134) watched a hiding event on either (a) contingent video that advanced only after touch input or (b) non-contingent video that proceeded automatically. Toddlers then searched for a corresponding object on a felt board. Additionally, toddlers' working memory (WM) was assessed. Findings indicate WM and age moderated the impact of contingency on transfer: Contingency decreased transfer in younger children while increasing transfer among older children. However, this was only true for children with relatively low WM. Contingency had little impact on transfer among children with relatively high WM, regardless of age. Results from this study suggest that WM is one specific moderator that predicts whether toddlers are likely to learn from contingent vs. non-contingent video, yet WM does not operate in isolation. Together, these findings underscore the importance of considering multiple child characteristics when identifying the optimal conditions for toddlers' learning from symbolic media.

Does texting interrupt imitation learning in 19-month-old infants?

Observed disruptions to parent-child interactions during parental media use, such as texting, have been termed technoference. For example, when a language learning interaction was disrupted by a phone call, toddlers were less likely to acquire the word. Other studies demonstrated that parents often exhibit a still face while silently reading information on their cell phones. In the present study, the effect of a text interruption on infant imitation learning was examined. Parents demonstrated three target actions to their infants and then infants were given the opportunity to repeat those interactions. The actions were demonstrated four times. Text interruptions occurred before or between demonstrations. Performance of these groups was compared to a baseline control group where the infant did not see a demonstration of the target actions and a no-interruption group where the parents demonstrated the target actions four times without interruption. Parents were randomly assigned to three conditions, interruption-first condition, one-interruption condition, or three-interruptions condition. Infant behavior was measured during the interruptions. Across text interruption groups parents exhibited high levels of still face during the interruptions (77 %). However, infants in all 3 interruption groups performed significantly above the baseline control indicating learning despite the interruptions. Higher reported maternal reliance on the smartphone was related to poorer imitation performance overall. In contrast, when parents reported that they found it easier to multi-task infant imitation rates were higher. These findings indicate that infants can learn under conditions of brief technoference and that individual differences in family media ecology are associated with learning.

Can a robot teach me that? Children's ability to imitate robots

Commensurate with constant technological advances, social robots are increasingly anticipated to enter homes and classrooms; however, little is known about the efficacy of social robots as teaching tools. To investigate children's learning from robots, 1- to 3-year-olds observed either a human or a robot demonstrate two goal-directed object manipulation tasks and were then given the opportunity to act on the objects. Children exhibited less imitation from robotic models that varied with task complexity and age, a phenomenon we term the "robot deficit." In addition, the more children engaged with the robot prior to administration of the imitation task, the more likely they were to replicate the robot's actions. These findings document how children are able to learn from robots but that ongoing design of robotic platforms needs to be oriented to developing more socially engaging means of interacting.

Imitation in Angelman syndrome: the role of social engagement

Individuals with Angelman syndrome (AS) are characterized by severe cognitive impairments alongside an enhanced drive for social engagement. As knowledge on imitation skills in this population is limited, we conducted the first controlled study of imitation in AS. We examined how 23 individuals with AS and 21 typically developing young children with similar mental age imitated novel actions in response to socially or non-socially engaging models, and in response to video-recorded versus live demonstrations of novel actions. Individuals with AS imitated as frequently and as accurately as typical young children in response to live demonstrations; but they imitated less frequently and less accurately in response to video-recorded demonstrations. Further, imitation was modulated by whether the demonstrator was socially engaging or emotionally neutral in the AS group, while this modulation was not present in the comparison group. Individuals with higher mental age imitated more frequently and more accurately across groups. Imitation performance in AS appears to be more modulated by the social context compared to typical infants and young children with similar mental age, possibly reflecting an enhanced drive for social engagement. A socially engaging instructional style might facilitate imitative learning in this population.

Mirror, Peephole and Video - The Role of Contiguity in Children's Perception of Reference in Iconic Signs

The present study looked at the extent to which 2-year-old children benefited from information conveyed by viewing a hiding event through an opening in a cardboard screen, seeing it as live video, as pre-recorded video, or by way of a mirror. Being encouraged to find the hidden object by selecting one out of two cups, the children successfully picked the baited cup significantly more often when they had viewed the hiding through the opening, or in live video, than when they viewed it in pre-recorded video, or by way of a mirror. All conditions rely on the perception of similarity. The study suggests, however, that contiguity – i.e., the perception of temporal and physical closeness between events – rather than similarity is the principal factor accounting for the results.

Associations Between Screen Use and Child Language Skills: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Importance

There is considerable public and scientific debate as to whether screen use helps or hinders early child development, particularly the development of language skills.

Objective

To examine via meta-analyses the associations between quantity (duration of screen time and background television), quality (educational programming and co-viewing), and onset of screen use and children's language skills.

Data Sources

Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, Embase, and PsycINFO in March 2019. The search strategy included a publication date limit from 1960 through March 2019.

Study Selection

Inclusion criteria were a measure of screen use; a measure of language skills; and statistical data that could be transformed into an effect size. Exclusion criteria were qualitative studies; child age older than 12 years; and language assessment preverbal.

Data Extraction and Synthesis

The following variables were extracted: effect size, child age and sex, screen measure type, study publication year, and study design. All studies were independently coded by 2 coders and conducted in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines.

Main Outcomes and Measures

Based on a priori study criteria, quantity of screen use included duration of screen time and background television, quality of screen use included co-viewing and exposure to educational programs, and onset of screen use was defined as the age children first began viewing screens. The child language outcome included assessments of receptive and/or expressive language.

Results

Participants totaled 18 905 from 42 studies included. Effect sizes were measured as correlations (r). Greater quantity of screen use (hours per use) was associated with lower language skills (screen time [n = 38; r = -0.14; 95% CI, -0.18 to -0.10]; background television [n = 5; r = -0.19; 95% CI, -0.33 to -0.05]), while better-quality screen use (educational programs [n = 13; r = 0.13; 95% CI, 0.02-0.24]; co-viewing [n = 12; r = 0.16; 95% CI, 0.07-.24]) were associated with stronger child language skills. Later age at screen use onset was also associated with stronger child language skills [n = 4; r = 0.17; 95% CI, 0.07-0.27].

Conclusions and Relevance

The findings of this meta-analysis support pediatric recommendations to limit children's duration of screen exposure, to select high-quality programming, and to co-view when possible.

Learning From Others: The Effects of Agency on Event Memory in Young Children

Little is known about the influence of social context on children's event memory. Across four studies, we examined whether learning that could occur in the absence of a person was more robust when a person was present. Three-year-old children (N = 125) viewed sequential events that either included or excluded an acting agent. In Experiment 1, children who viewed an agent recalled more than children who did not. Experiments 2a and 2b utilized an eye tracker to demonstrate this effect was not due to differences in attention. Experiment 3 used a combined behavioral and event-related potential paradigm to show that condition effects were present in memory-related components. These converging results indicate a particular role for social knowledge in supporting memory for events.

Fourteen-month-olds' imitation is influenced more strongly by a model's competence than by a model's certainty

Research has shown that infants are more likely to learn from certain and competent models than from uncertain and incompetent models. However, it is unknown which of these cues to a model's reliability infants consider more important. In Experiment 1, we investigated whether 14-month-old infants (n = 35) imitate and adopt tool choices selectively from an uncertain but competent compared to a certain but incompetent model. Infants watched videos in which an adult expressed either uncertainty but acted competently or expressed certainty but acted incompetently with familiar objects. In tool-choice tasks, the adult then chose one of two objects to operate an apparatus, and in imitation tasks, the adult then demonstrated a novel action. Infants did not adopt the model's choice in the tool-choice tasks but they imitated the uncertain but competent model more often than the certain but incompetent model in the imitation tasks. In Experiment 2, 14-month-olds (n = 33) watched videos in which an adult expressed only either certainty or uncertainty in order to test whether infants at this age are sensitive to a model's certainty. Infants imitated and adopted the tool choice from a certain model more than from an uncertain model. These results suggest that 14-month-olds acknowledge both a model's competence and certainty when learning novel actions. However, they rely more on a model's competence than on his certainty when both cues are in conflict. The ability to detect reliable models when learning how to handle cultural artifacts helps infants to become well-integrated members of their culture.

Observing third-party ostracism enhances facial mimicry in 30-month-olds

Mimicry is suggested to be one of the strategies via which we enhance social affiliation. Although recent studies have shown that, like adults, young children selectively mimic the facial actions of in-group over out-group members, it is unknown whether this early mimicry behavior is driven by affiliative motivations. Here we investigated the functional role of facial mimicry in early childhood by testing whether observing third-party ostracism, which has previously been shown to enhance children's affiliative behaviors, enhances facial mimicry in 30-month-olds. Toddlers were presented with videos in which one shape was ostracized by other shapes or with control videos that did not show any ostracism. Before and after this, the toddlers observed videos of models performing facial actions (e.g., eyebrow raising, mouth opening) while we measured activation over their corresponding facial muscles using electromyography (EMG) to obtain an index of facial mimicry. We also coded the videos of the sessions for overt imitation. We found that toddlers in the ostracism condition showed greater facial mimicry at posttest than toddlers in the control condition, as indicated by both EMG and behavioral coding measures. Although the exact mechanism underlying this result needs to be investigated in future studies, this finding is consistent with social affiliation accounts of mimicry and suggests that mimicry may play a key role in maintaining affiliative bonds when toddlers perceive the risk of social exclusion.

Association of Early-Life Social and Digital Media Experiences With Development of Autism Spectrum Disorder-Like Symptoms

IMPORTANCE

Despite growing evidence that parent-child interactions and time viewing digital media affect child development, these factors have rarely been studied in association with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) symptoms.

OBJECTIVE

To determine the association of experiential factors, including social activities and screen viewing in the first 18 months of life, perinatal factors, and demographic factors, with ASD-like symptoms and risk on the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (M-CHAT) at 2 years.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS

Data for this cohort study were derived from the National Children's Study, a US multicenter epidemiological study of environmental influences on child health and development. A total of 2152 children were enrolled at birth from October 1, 2010, to October 31, 2012. Data were analyzed from December 1, 2017, to December 3, 2019.

EXPOSURES

Caregivers reported whether the child viewed television and/or videos (yes or no) at 12 months of age, hours of viewing at 18 months of age, time spent by the caregiver reading to the child (number of days per week compared with daily) at 12 months of age, and frequency of playing with the child (daily or less than daily) at 12 months of age. Prematurity, maternal age at birth, child sex, household income, race/ethnicity, and caregiver English-language status were included in analysis.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

Significant association of exposures with ASD risk by M-CHAT and/or ASD-like symptoms assessed by revised M-CHAT (M-CHAT-R) total score in multiple regression models.

RESULTS

Among the 2152 children included in the analysis (1099 boys [51.1%]), television and/or video viewing (yes or no) at 12 months of age was significantly associated with greater ASD-like symptoms at 2 years of age (change, 4.2%; 95% CI, 0.1%-8.3%) but not with ASD risk (risk prevalence rates, 8.3% vs 4.4%; adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 1.40; 95% CI, 0.86-2.29). Similarly, parent-child play daily compared with less than daily was significantly associated with fewer ASD-like symptoms at 2 years of age (change, -8.9%; 95% CI, -16.5% to -0.9%) but not with ASD risk (risk prevalence rates, 6.4% vs 14.0%; AOR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.31-1.08). However, high screen viewing at 18 months of age was not significantly associated with ASD-like symptoms (change, 10.7%; 95% CI, -2.0% to 23.0%) or ASD risk by M-CHAT (AOR, 1.18; 95% CI, 0.56-2.49) at 2 years of age.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

This cohort study found greater screen exposure and less caregiver-child play early in life to be associated with later ASD-like symptoms. Further research is needed to evaluate experiential factors for potential risk or protective effects in ASD.

Parental education, television exposure, and children's early cognitive, language and behavioral development

The association between television exposure and children's development is subject to controversial debates. Heavy television exposure may be detrimental to children by overstimulating their developing brains. It may also infringe on time that children would otherwise spend on more developmentally beneficial activities or parental interactions. In the present analysis, we use data from the 2004/5 birth cohort of the Growing Up in Scotland study to investigate relations between hours of weekly television measured around the ages of two to four and as average over this period with children's linguistic, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes around the age of five. Our analysis shows differences in the level and growth of television exposure by parental education. However, we did not find any substantive associations between television exposure and children's cognitive or language ability. We found small associations of television exposure with conduct problems and prosocial behavior, particularly for children of less-educated parents. Overall, the results suggest that the impact of television on children's development is less pronounced than often assumed.

Squirrel monkey responses to information from social demonstration and individual exploration using touchscreen and object choice tasks

We aimed to study whether a non-human primate species responded differently to information acquired socially compared with that acquired individually. To do so, we attempted to train squirrel monkeys to perform binary discriminations. These involved exposure to either social information (human or puppet demonstrator performs an initial 'information trial') or individual exploration (monkey performs information trial as well as subsequent test trials). In Experiment 1, we presented the task on a touchscreen tablet. Only one monkey appeared to learn the significance of the information trial, and across the group there was no improvement in performance over sessions. The proficient individual showed little evidence of successful transfer to three-way discrimination problems, suggesting limited representation of the task structure. In Experiment 2, we used a logically identical task, presented as a physical object choice (inverted cups concealing a food reward). No monkeys learned to use the information trial cues, and success again did not increase over sessions. We concluded that the monkeys' poor performance in Experiment 1 was not attributable to the mode of presentation (touchscreen), but reflected real difficulties with mastering the task structure. For both experiments, we analysed the monkeys' spontaneous responses to the different trial types (social-win, social-lose, individual-win, and individual-lose). We found that monkeys had a tendency to repeat selections made during the information trial, whether these were made by themselves or by a demonstrator. This tendency to repeat was observed even following lose trials (i.e. when incorrect). Apparent 'success' following win trials was probably largely an artefact of behavioural inertia (individual learning conditions) and stimulus enhancement (social learning conditions), rather than sensitivity to the reward cues associated with that stimulus. Although monkeys did respond somewhat differently (more repeats) following win trials, compared with lose trials, this was no more apparent in the object choice task than the touchscreen task, again suggesting that the less ecologically valid presentation medium did not actively disrupt potential for learning the discrimination rule. Both touchscreen and physical object choice tasks appear to be valid methods to study learning in squirrel monkeys, with neither method giving a clear performance advantage over the other. However, this population did not master the contingencies in these tasks.

Growing up in the digital age: Early learning and family media ecology

Media is so pervasive that it should no longer be considered a nuisance variable that could affect development but rather, a fundamental part of the context in which development occurs. Despite the rapid growth in access to digital media, there is a scarcity of research examining changes in the family media ecology and the subsequent effects of early media exposure on socio-cognitive development. Early research erroneously focused on the absolute amount of exposure by the child. Current research now considers the entire household, including both intentional exposure to child-directed content and unintended exposure to background media sources. Such research demonstrates that young children can and do learn from well-designed media particularly when they engage with others during digital play.

Actions speak louder than words: Differences in memory flexibility between monolingual and bilingual 18-month-olds

Bilingual infants from 6- to 24-months of age are more likely to generalize, flexibly reproducing actions on novel objects significantly more often than age-matched monolingual infants are. In the current study, we examine whether the addition of novel verbal labels enhances memory generalization in a perceptually complex imitation task. We hypothesized that labels would provide an additional retrieval cue and aid memory generalization for bilingual infants. Specifically, we hypothesized that bilinguals might be more likely than monolinguals to map multiple perceptual features onto a novel label and therefore show enhanced generalization. Eighty-seven 18-month-old monolingual and bilingual infants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions or a baseline control condition. In the experimental conditions, either no label or a novel label was added during demonstration and again at the beginning of the test session. After a 24-hr delay, infants were tested with the same stimulus set to test cued recall and with a perceptually different but functionally equivalent stimulus set to test memory generalization. Bilinguals performed significantly above baseline on both cued recall and memory generalization in both experimental conditions, whereas monolinguals performed significantly above baseline only on cued recall in both experimental conditions. These findings show a difference between monolinguals and bilinguals in memory generalization and suggest that generalization differences between groups may arise from visual perceptual processing rather than linguistic processing. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://youtu.be/yXB4pM3fF2k.

I’m Doing Better on My Own: Social Inhibition in Vocabulary Learning in Adults

Vocabulary learning is better achieved by children facing a teacher than when presented to the same teacher through video (so-called “video deficit” effect), which has significant implications for toddlers’ education. Since millions of adults also learn new vocabulary when acquiring a second language (L2), it is important to explore whether adults suffer from “video deficit” effects, as children do. In the present study, we report two experiments in which Spanish native late learners of English were involved in a vocabulary learning task. In Experiment 1, participants had to learn English (L2) labels associated to real objects. In Experiment 2, participants had to learn English (L2) and Spanish (L1) labels associated to novel objects. In both experiments, vocabulary learning was divided into three conditions: In the NoFace condition, participants were presented with the objects and their auditory labels, through video. In the Video condition, a teacher was showing the objects and uttering their names, through video. The Live condition was equivalent, except that the teacher was facing the participants in the room. Each condition was followed by a recall test. Better learning in Video compared to NoFace condition revealed that adults benefit from the teacher’s display with direct gaze, confirming the fundamental role of face display with direct gaze in social communication in adults. Interestingly, adults learned better through Video than in the Live condition. Those results were obtained in L2 vocabulary learning in both Experiments 1 and 2, and also generalized to native language in Experiment 2. We argue that adults suffer from social inhibition, meaning that they perform worse when in the presence of another person during task performance. In sum, we show that video-mediated teaching might not be detrimental for adults learning new vocabulary lists, as it is the case for young children. These results might have important implications for pedagogical programs targeting adults’ second language vocabulary learning, since proper acquisition of vocabulary list can be achieved through video including a teacher’s display.

Subtle temporal delays of mothers' responses affect imitation learning in children: Mother-child interaction study

The relationship between temporal contiguity of mothers' teaching behaviors and children's imitation learning was investigated. Participants (2-year-old children) observed their mothers' demonstration of using novel toys over a double television system under live and delayed conditions. The dyads normally interacted in the live condition, whereas they interacted with a 1-s time delay inserted between the children's actions and mothers' responses in the delayed condition. Then, the children were tested with identical toys. Results indicated that children's smiling responses and imitation performances were significantly decreased in the delayed condition compared with the live condition, although mothers' teaching approach did not differ between conditions. These results suggest that a subtle temporal delay in mothers' responses could affect young children's imitation learning.

Let's Chat: On-Screen Social Responsiveness Is Not Sufficient to Support Toddlers' Word Learning From Video

Joint engagement with a speaker is one cue children may use to establish that an interaction is relevant to them and worthy of attention. People on pre-recorded video cannot engage contingently with a viewer in shared experiences, possibly leading to deficits in learning from video relative to learning from responsive face-to-face encounters. One hundred and thirty two toddlers (24 and 30 months old) were offered referential social cues disambiguating a novel word's meaning in one of four conditions: responsive live (a speaker was present and engaged with children); unresponsive video (a speaker on video looked at the camera and smiled at scripted times); unresponsive live (although present, the speaker behaved as she did on the unresponsive video), and responsive video (a speaker on closed-circuit video engaged with children, as in video chat). Children of both ages reliably learned the word in the responsive live condition, and older children (30 months) learned in the unresponsive live condition. Neither group learned in the responsive or unresponsive video conditions. The results show that the addition of communicative social cues to the video presentation via video chat was not sufficient to support learning in this case. Rather, toddlers' transfer and generalization of words presented on video chat may depend on other contextual factors, such as co-viewers who scaffold their learning. Live, responsive video as implemented in this and prior studies is compared, with implications for the use of video chat via the Internet with young children.

Children aged 6-24 months like to watch YouTube videos but could not learn anything from them

AIM

Parents sometimes show young children YouTube videos on their smartphones. We studied the interaction of 55 Indian children born between December 2014 and May 2015 who watched YouTube videos when they were 6-24 months old.

METHODS

The children were recruited by the researchers using professional and personal contacts and visited by the same two observers at four ages, for at least 10 minutes. The observers recorded the children's abilities to interact with touch screens and identify people in videos and noted what videos attracted them the most.

RESULTS

The children were attracted to music at six months of age and were interested in watching the videos at 12 months. They could identify their parents in videos at 12 months and themselves by 24 months. They started touching the screen at 18 months and could press the buttons that appeared on the screen, but did not understand their use. The children preferred watching dance performances by multiple artists with melodical music, advertisements for products they used and videos showing toys and balloons.

CONCLUSION

Children up to two years of age could be entertained and kept busy by showing them YouTube clips on smartphones, but did not learn anything from the videos.

Differential effects of others' emotional cues on 18-month-olds' preferential reproduction of observed actions

Infants use others' emotional signals to regulate their own object-directed behavior and action reproduction, and they typically produce more actions after having observed positive as compared to negative emotional cues. This study explored infants' understanding of the referential specificity of others' emotional cues when being confronted with two actions that are accompanied by different emotional displays. Selective action reproduction was measured after 18-month-olds (N = 42) had observed two actions directed at the same object, one of which was modeled with a positive emotional expression and the other with a negative emotional expression. Across four trials with different objects, infants' first actions matched the positively-emoted actions more often than the negatively-emoted actions. In comparison with baseline-level, infants' initial performance changed only for the positively-emoted actions, in that it increased during test. Latencies to first object-touch during test did not differ when infants reproduced the positively- or negatively-emoted actions, respectively, indicating that infants related the cues to the respective actions rather than to the object. During demonstration, infants looked relatively longer at the object than at the model's face, with no difference in positive or negative displays. Infants during their second year of life thus capture the action-related referential specificity of others' emotional cues and seem to follow positive signals more readily when actively selecting which of two actions to reproduce preferentially.

The early social significance of shared ritual actions

Many rituals are socially stipulated such that engaging in a group's rituals can fundamentally signal membership in that group. Here, we asked whether infants infer information about people's social affiliation based on whether those people perform the same ritualistic action versus different actions. We presented 16-month-old infants with two people who used the same object to achieve the same goal: turning on a light. In a first study, the actions that the actors used to turn on the light had key properties of ritual: they were not causally necessary to reach the overall goal, and there were no features of the situation that required doing the particular actions. We varied whether the two actors performed the same action or performed different actions to turn on the light. Infants expected people who used the same ritualistic action to be more likely to affiliate than people who used different actions. A second study indicated that these results were not due to perceptual similarity: when the differences in the actors' actions were not marked by properties of ritual, but were instead due to situational constraints, infants expected the actors to affiliate. Thus, infants understand the social significance of people engaging in common, potentially ritualistic actions, and expect these actions to provide information about third-party social relationships.

Co-viewing supports toddlers' word learning from contingent and noncontingent video

Social cues are one way young children determine that a situation is pedagogical in nature-containing information to be learned and generalized. However, some social cues (e.g., contingent gaze and responsiveness) are missing from prerecorded video, a potential reason why toddlers' language learning from video can be inefficient compared with their learning directly from a person. This study explored two methods for supporting children's word learning from video by adding social-communicative cues. A sample of 88 30-month-olds began their participation with a video training phase. In one manipulation, an on-screen actress responded contingently to children through a live video feed (similar to Skype or FaceTime "video chat") or appeared in a prerecorded demonstration. In the other manipulation, parents either modeled responsiveness to the actress's on-screen bids for participation or sat out of their children's view. Children then viewed a labeling demonstration on video, and their knowledge of the label was tested with three-dimensional objects. Results indicated that both on-screen contingency and parent modeling increased children's engagement with the actress during training. However, only parent modeling increased children's subsequent word learning, perhaps by revealing the symbolic (representational) intentions underlying this video. This study highlights the importance of adult co-viewing in helping toddlers to interpret communicative cues from video.

"Should I or shouldn't I?" Imitation of undesired versus allowed actions from peer and adult models by 18- and 24-month-old toddlers

Imitation is a common way of acquiring novel behaviors in toddlers. However, little is known about toddlers' imitation of undesired actions. Here we investigated 18- and 24-month-olds' (N=110) imitation of undesired and allowed actions from televised peer and adult models. Permissiveness of the demonstrated actions was indicated by the experimenter's response to their execution (angry or neutral). Analyses revealed that toddlers' imitation scores were higher after demonstrations of allowed versus undesired actions, regardless of the age of the model. In agreement with prior research, these results suggest that third-party reactions to a model's actions can be a powerful cue for toddlers to engage in or refrain from imitation. In the context of the present study, third-party reactions were more influential on imitation than the model's age. Considering the relative influence of different social cues for imitation can help to gain a fuller understanding of early observational learning.

The Effect of Social Responsiveness on Infants' Object-Directed Imitation

Previous research has demonstrated that social interactions underlie the development of object-directed imitation. For example, infants differentially learn object action sequences from a live social partner compared to a social partner over a video monitor; however, what is not well understood is what aspects of social interactions influence social learning. Previous studies have found variable influences of different types of caregiver responsiveness on attention, language, and cognitive development. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how the responsive style of a social partner influenced the learning of object-directed action sequences. Infants interacted with either a sensitive or redirective experimenter before the learning trial. Results revealed infants changed their patterns of engagement; infants interacting with a sensitive experimenter had longer periods of attentional engagement than infants interacting with a redirective experimenter. Furthermore, during the learning trial, the amount of sensitivity during interaction with the social partner predicted learning scores. These findings suggest that infants' attention is influenced by social partners' interactive style during ongoing interaction, which subsequently affects how infants learn from these social partners.

All Tapped Out: Touchscreen Interactivity and Young Children's Word Learning

Touchscreen devices differ from passive screen media in promoting physical interaction with events on the screen. Two studies examined how young children's screen-directed actions related to self-regulation (Study 1) and word learning (Study 2). In Study 1, 30 2-year-old children's tapping behaviors during game play were related to their self-regulation, measured using Carlson's snack task: girls and children with high self-regulation tapped significantly less during instruction portions of an app (including object labeling events) than did boys and children with low self-regulation. Older preschoolers (N = 47, aged 4-6 years) tapped significantly less during instruction than 2-year-olds did. Study 2 explored whether the particular way in which 170 children (2-4 years of age) interacted with a touchscreen app affected their learning of novel object labels. Conditions in which children tapped or dragged a named object to move it across the screen required different amounts of effort and focus, compared to a non-interactive (watching) condition. Age by sex interactions revealed a particular benefit of dragging (a motorically challenging behavior) for preschool girls' learning compared to that of boys, especially for girls older than age 2. Boys benefited more from watching than dragging. Children from low socioeconomic status families learned more object names when dragging objects versus tapping them, possibly because tapping is a prepotent response that does not require thoughtful attention. Parents and industry experts should consider age, sex, self-regulation, and the physical requirements of children's engagement with touchscreens when designing and using educational content.

Infants' and adults' looking behavior does not indicate perceptual distraction for constrained modelled actions - An eye-tracking study

When observing a novel action, infants pay attention to the model's constraints when deciding whether to imitate this action or not. Gergely et al. (2002) found that more 14-month-olds copied a model's use of her head to operate a lamp when she used her head while her hands were free than when she had to use this means because it was the only means available to her (i.e., her hands were occupied). The perceptional distraction account (Beisert et al., 2012) claims that differences between conditions in terms of the amount of attention infants paid to the modeled action caused the differences in infants' performance between conditions. In order to investigate this assumption we presented 14-month-olds (N=34) with an eye-tracking paradigm and analyzed their looking behavior when observing the head-touch demonstration in the two original conditions. Subsequently, they had the chance to operate the apparatus themselves, and we measured their imitative responses. In order to explore the perceptional processes taking place in this paradigm in adulthood, we also presented adults (N=31) with the same task. Apart from the fact that we did not replicate the findings in imitation with our participants, the eye-tracking results do not support the perceptional distraction account: infants did not statistically differ - not even tendentially - in their amount of looking at the modeled action in both conditions. Adults also did not statistically differ in their looking at the relevant action components. However, both groups predominantly observed the relevant head action. Consequently, infants and adults do not seem to attend differently to constrained and unconstrained modelled actions.

Development of long-term event memory in preverbal infants: an eye-tracking study

The development of long-term event memory in preverbal infants remains elusive. To address this issue, we applied an eye-tracking method that successfully revealed in great apes that they have long-term memory of single events. Six-, 12-, 18- and 24-month-old infants watched a video story in which an aggressive ape-looking character came out from one of two identical doors. While viewing the same video again 24 hours later, 18- and 24-month-old infants anticipatorily looked at the door where the character would show up before it actually came out, but 6- and 12-month-old infants did not. Next, 12-, 18- and 24-month-old infants watched a different video story, in which a human grabbed one of two objects to hit back at the character. In their second viewing after a 24-hour delay, 18- and 24-month-old infants increased viewing time on the objects before the character grabbed one. In this viewing, 24-month-old infants preferentially looked at the object that the human had used, but 18-month-old infants did not show such preference. Our results show that infants at 18 months of age have developed long-term event memory, an ability to encode and retrieve a one-time event and this ability is elaborated thereafter.