1
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Calmette T, Meunier H. Is self-awareness necessary to have a theory of mind? Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc 2024; 99:1736-1771. [PMID: 38676546 DOI: 10.1111/brv.13090] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2023] [Revised: 04/11/2024] [Accepted: 04/16/2024] [Indexed: 04/29/2024]
Abstract
Forty years ago, Gallup proposed that theory of mind presupposes self-awareness. Following Humphrey, his hypothesis was that individuals can infer the mental states of others thanks to the ability to monitor their own mental states in similar circumstances. Since then, advances in several disciplines, such as comparative and developmental psychology, have provided empirical evidence to test Gallup's hypothesis. Herein, we review and discuss this evidence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tony Calmette
- Centre de Primatologie de l'Université de Strasbourg, Niederhausbergen, 67207, France
- Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Adaptatives, UMR 7364, CNRS, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 67000, France
| | - Hélène Meunier
- Centre de Primatologie de l'Université de Strasbourg, Niederhausbergen, 67207, France
- Laboratoire de Neurosciences Cognitives et Adaptatives, UMR 7364, CNRS, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 67000, France
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2
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Symeonidou M, Mizokawa A, Kabaya S, Doherty MJ, Ross J. Contrasting one's share of the shared life space: Comparing the roles of metacognition and inhibitory control in the development of theory of mind among Scottish and Japanese children. Dev Sci 2024; 27:e13417. [PMID: 37408284 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13417] [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: 07/23/2022] [Revised: 04/24/2023] [Accepted: 05/12/2023] [Indexed: 07/07/2023]
Abstract
Cultural comparisons suggest that an understanding of other minds may develop sooner in independent versus interdependent settings, and vice versa for inhibitory control. From a western lens, this pattern might be considered paradoxical, since there is a robust positive relationship between theory of mind (ToM) and inhibitory control in western samples. In independent cultures, an emphasis on one's own mind offers a clear route to 'simulate' other minds, and inhibitory control may be required to set aside one's own perspective to represent the perspective of others. However, in interdependent cultures, social norms are considered the key catalyst for behaviour, and metacognitive reflection and/or suppression of one's own perspective may not be necessary. The cross-cultural generalizability of the western developmental route to ToM is therefore questionable. The current study used an age-matched cross-sectional sample to contrast 56 Japanese and 56 Scottish 3-6-year-old's metacognition, ToM and inhibitory control skills. We replicated the expected cultural patterns for ToM (Scotland > Japan) and inhibitory control (Japan > Scotland). Supporting western developmental enrichment theories, we find that inhibitory control and metacognition predict theory of mind competence in Scotland. However, these variables cannot be used to predict Japanese ToM. This confirms that individualistic mechanisms do not capture the developmental mechanism underlying ToM in Japan, highlighting a bias in our understanding of ToM development. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We replicate an independent cultural advantage for theory of mind (Scotland > Japan) and interdependent advantage for inhibitory control (Japan > Scotland). From a western lens, this pattern might be considered paradoxical, since there is a robust positive relationship between theory of mind and inhibitory control. Supporting western developmental enrichment theories, we find that the development of inhibitory control mediates the link between metacognition and theory of mind in Scotland. However, this model does not predict Japanese theory of mind, highlighting an individualistic bias in our mechanistic understanding of theory of mind development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mariel Symeonidou
- Psychology, School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland
| | - Ai Mizokawa
- Graduate School of Education and Human Development, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan
| | - Shinsuke Kabaya
- Department of Psychology, Aichi Shukutoku University, Nagakute, Aichi, Japan
| | | | - Josephine Ross
- Psychology, School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland
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3
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Engelmann JM, Haux LM, Völter C, Schleihauf H, Call J, Rakoczy H, Herrmann E. Do chimpanzees reason logically? Child Dev 2023; 94:1102-1116. [PMID: 36259153 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13861] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Psychologists disagree about the development of logical concepts such as or and not. While some theorists argue that infants reason logically, others maintain that logical inference is contingent on linguistic abilities and emerges around age 4. In this Registered Report, we conducted five experiments on logical reasoning in chimpanzees. Subjects (N = 16; 10 females; M = 24 years) participated in the same setup that has been administered to children: the two-, three-, and four-cup-task. Chimpanzees performed above chance in the two-cup-, but not in the three-cup-task. Furthermore, chimpanzees selected the logically correct option more often in the test than the control condition of the four-cup-task. We discuss possible interpretations of these findings and conclude that our results are most consistent with non-deductive accounts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jan M Engelmann
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
| | - Lou M Haux
- Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
| | - Christoph Völter
- Messerli Research Institute, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, Medical University of Vienna, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Hanna Schleihauf
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, USA
- Department for Primate Cognition, Georg-August-University Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany
| | - Josep Call
- School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, UK
| | - Hannes Rakoczy
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Georg-Elias Müller Institute of Psychology, Georg-August-University Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany
| | - Esther Herrmann
- Department of Psychology, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK
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4
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Pueschel EB, Ibrahim A, Franklin T, Skinner S, Moll H. Four-year-olds selectively transmit true information. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0284694. [PMID: 37104267 PMCID: PMC10138483 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0284694] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/17/2023] [Accepted: 04/05/2023] [Indexed: 04/28/2023] Open
Abstract
Two experiments (N = 112) were conducted to examine preschoolers' concern for the truth when transmitting information. A first experiment (Pilot Experiment) revealed that 4-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, selectively transmitted information marked as true versus information marked as false. The second experiment (Main Experiment) showed that 4-year-olds selectively transmitted true information regardless of whether their audience lacked knowledge (Missing Knowledge Context) or information (Missing Information Context) about the subject matter. Children selected more true information when choosing between true versus false information (Falsity Condition) and when choosing between true information versus information the truth of which was undetermined (Bullshit Condition). The Main Experiment also revealed that 4-year-olds shared information more spontaneously, i.e., before being prompted, when it was knowledge, rather than information, the audience was seeking. The findings add to the field's growing understanding of young children as benevolent sharers of knowledge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ellyn B. Pueschel
- Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
| | - Ashley Ibrahim
- Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
| | - Taylor Franklin
- Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
| | - Samantha Skinner
- Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
| | - Henrike Moll
- Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, United States of America
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5
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Dutemple E, Hakimi H, Poulin-Dubois D. Do I know what they know? Linking metacognition, theory of mind, and selective social learning. J Exp Child Psychol 2023; 227:105572. [PMID: 36371850 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105572] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/10/2021] [Revised: 08/21/2022] [Accepted: 10/06/2022] [Indexed: 11/12/2022]
Abstract
Young children are often dependent on learning from others and to this effect develop heuristics to help distinguish reliable sources from unreliable sources. Where younger children rely heavily on social cues such as familiarity with a source to make this distinction, older children tend to rely more on an informant's competence. Little is known about the cognitive mechanisms that help children to select the best informant; however, some evidence points toward mechanisms such as metacognition (thinking about thinking) and theory of mind (thinking about other's thoughts) being involved. The goals of the current study were to (a) explore how the monitoring and control components of metacognition may predict selective social learning in preschoolers and (b) attempt to replicate a reported link between selective social learning and theory of mind. In Experiment 1, no relationship was observed across the measures. In Experiment 2, only selective social learning and belief reasoning were found to be related as well as when both experiments' samples were combined. No links between selective social learning and metacognition were observed in the two experiments. These results suggest that theory of mind is a stronger correlate of selective learning than metacognition in young children. The implications regarding the kind of tasks used to measure metacognition are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elizabeth Dutemple
- Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec H4B 1R6, Canada.
| | - Hanifa Hakimi
- Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec H4B 1R6, Canada
| | - Diane Poulin-Dubois
- Department of Psychology, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec H4B 1R6, Canada
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6
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Goupil L, Proust J. Curiosity as a metacognitive feeling. Cognition 2023; 231:105325. [PMID: 36434942 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105325] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2022] [Revised: 10/28/2022] [Accepted: 11/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Curious information-seeking is known to be a key driver for learning, but characterizing this important psychological phenomenon remains a challenge. In this article, we argue that solving this challenge requires qualifying the relationships between metacognition and curiosity. The idea that curiosity is a metacognitive competence has been resisted: researchers have assumed both that young children and non-human animals can be genuinely curious, and that metacognition requires conceptual and culturally situated resources that are unavailable to young children and non-human animals. Here, we argue that this resistance is unwarranted given accumulating evidence that metacognition can be deployed procedurally, and we defend the view that curiosity is a metacognitive feeling. Our metacognitive view singles out two monitoring steps as a triggering condition for curiosity: evaluating one's own informational needs, and predicting the likelihood that explorations of the proximate environment afford significant information gains. We review empirical evidence and computational models of curiosity, and show that they fit well with this metacognitive account, while on the contrary, they remain difficult to explain by a competing account according to which curiosity is a basic attitude of questioning. Finally, we propose a new way to construe the relationships between curiosity and the human-specific communicative practice of questioning, discuss the issue of how children may learn to express their curiosity through interactions with others, and conclude by briefly exploring the implications of our proposal for educational practices.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louise Goupil
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France.
| | - Joëlle Proust
- Institut Jean Nicod, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
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7
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Pelz MC, Allen KR, Tenenbaum JB, Schulz LE. Foundations of intuitive power analyses in children and adults. Nat Hum Behav 2022; 6:1557-1568. [PMID: 36065061 DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01427-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2020] [Accepted: 07/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Decades of research indicate that some of the epistemic practices that support scientific enquiry emerge as part of intuitive reasoning in early childhood. Here, we ask whether adults and young children can use intuitive statistical reasoning and metacognitive strategies to estimate how much information they might need to solve different discrimination problems, suggesting that they have some of the foundations for 'intuitive power analyses'. Across five experiments, both adults (N = 290) and children (N = 48, 6-8 years) were able to precisely represent the relative difficulty of discriminating populations and recognized that larger samples were required for populations with greater overlap. Participants were sensitive to the cost of sampling, as well as the perceptual nature of the stimuli. These findings indicate that both young children and adults metacognitively represent their own ability to make discriminations even in the absence of data, and can use this to guide efficient and effective exploration.
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Affiliation(s)
- Madeline C Pelz
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Kelsey R Allen
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Joshua B Tenenbaum
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Laura E Schulz
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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8
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O'Madagain C, Helming KA, Schmidt MFH, Shupe E, Call J, Tomasello M. Great apes and human children rationally monitor their decisions. Proc Biol Sci 2022; 289:20212686. [PMID: 35317676 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2021.2686] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Several species can detect when they are uncertain about what decision to make-revealed by opting out of the choice, or by seeking more information before deciding. However, we do not know whether any nonhuman animals recognize when they need more information to make a decision because new evidence contradicts an already-formed belief. Here, we explore this ability in great apes and human children. First, we show that after great apes saw new evidence contradicting their belief about which of two rewards was greater, they stopped to recheck the evidence for their belief before deciding. This indicates the ability to keep track of the reasons for their decisions, or 'rational monitoring' of the decision-making process. Children did the same at 5 years of age, but not at 3 years. In a second study, participants formed a belief about a reward's location, but then a social partner contradicted them, by picking the opposite location. This time even 3-year-old children rechecked the evidence, while apes ignored the disagreement. While apes were sensitive only to the conflict in physical evidence, the youngest children were more sensitive to peer disagreement than conflicting physical evidence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cathal O'Madagain
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.,School of Collective Intelligence, Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique, Ben Guérir, Morocco
| | - Katharina A Helming
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.,Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
| | - Marco F H Schmidt
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.,Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Germany
| | - Eli Shupe
- Department of Philosophy and the Humanities, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA
| | - Josep Call
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.,School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK
| | - Michael Tomasello
- Department of Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.,Department of Psychology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
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9
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O'Madagain C, Tomasello M. Shared intentionality, reason-giving and the evolution of human culture. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2022; 377:20200320. [PMID: 34894741 PMCID: PMC8666906 DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0320] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/14/2021] [Accepted: 07/20/2021] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
The biological approach to culture focuses almost exclusively on processes of social learning, to the neglect of processes of cultural coordination including joint action and shared intentionality. In this paper, we argue that the distinctive features of human culture derive from humans' unique skills and motivations for coordinating with one another around different types of action and information. As different levels of these skills of 'shared intentionality' emerged over the last several hundred thousand years, human culture became characterized first by such things as collaborative activities and pedagogy based on cooperative communication, and then by such things as collaborative innovations and normatively structured pedagogy. As a kind of capstone of this trajectory, humans began to coordinate not just on joint actions and shared beliefs, but on the reasons for what we believe or how we act. Coordinating on reasons powered the kinds of extremely rapid innovation and stable cumulative cultural evolution especially characteristic of the human species in the last several tens of thousands of years. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines'.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cathal O'Madagain
- School of Collective Intelligence, Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique, Ben Guerir, Morocco
- Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Michael Tomasello
- Department of Psychology, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
- Developmental and Comparative Psychology, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
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10
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Winsor AA, Flowe HD, Seale-Carlisle TM, Killeen IM, Hett D, Jores T, Ingham M, Lee BP, Stevens LM, Colloff MF. Child witness expressions of certainty are informative. J Exp Psychol Gen 2021; 150:2387-2407. [PMID: 34498905 PMCID: PMC8721974 DOI: 10.1037/xge0001049] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/29/2020] [Revised: 01/04/2021] [Accepted: 01/07/2021] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Children are frequently witnesses of crime. In the witness literature and legal systems, children are often deemed to have unreliable memories. Yet, in the basic developmental literature, young children can monitor their memory. To address these contradictory conclusions, we reanalyzed the confidence-accuracy relationship in basic and applied research. Confidence provided considerable information about memory accuracy, from at least age 8, but possibly younger. We also conducted an experiment where children in young (4-6 years), middle (7-9 years), and late (10-17 years) childhood (N = 2,205) watched a person in a video and then identified that person from a police lineup. Children provided a confidence rating (an explicit judgment) and used an interactive lineup-in which the lineup faces can be rotated-and we analyzed children's viewing behavior (an implicit measure of metacognition). A strong confidence-accuracy relationship was observed from age 10 and an emerging relationship from age 7. A constant likelihood ratio signal-detection model can be used to understand these findings. Moreover, in all ages, interactive viewing behavior differed in children who made correct versus incorrect suspect identifications. Our research reconciles the apparent divide between applied and basic research findings and suggests that the fundamental architecture of metacognition that has previously been evidenced in basic list-learning paradigms also underlies performance on complex applied tasks. Contrary to what is believed by legal practitioners, but similar to what has been found in the basic literature, identifications made by children can be reliable when appropriate metacognitive measures are used to estimate accuracy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
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11
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What I know and what you know: The role of metacognitive strategies in preschoolers’ selective social learning. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2021.101117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
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12
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Interactional training interventions boost children’s expressive pragmatic abilities: evidence from a novel multidimensional testing approach. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 2021. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cogdev.2020.101003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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13
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Kim S, Sodian B, Paulus M, Senju A, Okuno A, Ueno M, Itakura S, Proust J. Metacognition and mindreading in young children: A cross-cultural study. Conscious Cogn 2020; 85:103017. [PMID: 32932099 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2020.103017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2020] [Revised: 08/27/2020] [Accepted: 08/31/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
Prior studies document cross cultural variation in the developmental onset of mindreading. In particular, Japanese children are reported to pass a standard false belief task later than children from Western countries. By contrast, we know little about cross-cultural variation in young children's metacognitive abilities. Moreover, one prominent theoretical discussion in developmental psychology focuses on the relation between metacognition and mindreading. Here we investigated the relation between mindreading and metacognition (both implicit and explicit) by testing 4-year-old Japanese and German children. We found no difference in metacognition between the two cultural groups. By contrast, Japanese children showed lower performance than German children replicating cultural differences in mindreading. Finally, metacognition and mindreading were not related in either group. We discuss the findings in light of the existing theoretical accounts of the relation between metacognition and mindreading.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sunae Kim
- Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
| | | | | | - Atsushi Senju
- Center for Brain and Cognitive Development, University of London, Birkbeck, UK
| | - Akiko Okuno
- Center for Baby Science, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Mika Ueno
- Center for Baby Science, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan
| | - Shoji Itakura
- Center for Baby Science, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan
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14
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Gerson SA, Meyer M. Young Children's Memories for Social Actions: Influences of Age, Theory of Mind, and Motor Complexity. Child Dev 2020; 92:142-156. [PMID: 32706920 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13387] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Children learn actions performed by a social partner better when they misremember these actions as their own. Identifying the factors that alter the propensity to make appropriation errors is critical for optimizing social learning. In two experiments (N = 110), we investigate the developmental trajectory of appropriation errors and examine social-cognitive and motor-related factors in 3- to 8-year-olds. Children with better theory of mind (ToM) skills made fewer appropriation errors for motorically complex actions. Appropriation errors did not differ as a function of ToM if children could perform the corresponding actions. A second experiment replicated this effect and found no influence of collaborative context on appropriation errors. This research sheds light on the complex relations among development, social-cognition, and motor-related factors.
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15
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Bazhydai M, Westermann G, Parise E. “I don't know but I know who to ask”: 12‐month‐olds actively seek information from knowledgeable adults. Dev Sci 2020; 23:e12938. [DOI: 10.1111/desc.12938] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/04/2019] [Revised: 01/05/2020] [Accepted: 01/12/2020] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Marina Bazhydai
- Department of Psychology Fylde College Lancaster University Lancaster UK
| | - Gert Westermann
- Department of Psychology Fylde College Lancaster University Lancaster UK
| | - Eugenio Parise
- Department of Psychology Fylde College Lancaster University Lancaster UK
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16
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Leahy BP, Carey SE. The Acquisition of Modal Concepts. Trends Cogn Sci 2019; 24:65-78. [PMID: 31870542 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2019.11.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 34] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2019] [Revised: 11/02/2019] [Accepted: 11/04/2019] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
Sometimes we accept propositions, sometimes we reject them, and sometimes we take propositions to be worth considering but not yet established, as merely possible. The result is a complex representation with logical structure. Is the ability to mark propositions as merely possible part of our innate representational toolbox or does it await development, perhaps relying on language acquisition? Several lines of inquiry show that preverbal infants manage possibilities in complex ways, while others find that preschoolers manage possibilities poorly. Here, we discuss how this apparent conflict can be resolved by distinguishing modal representations of possibility, which mark possibility symbolically, from minimal representations of possibility, which do not encode any modal status and need not have a logical structure.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brian P Leahy
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
| | - Susan E Carey
- Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
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17
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Filevich E, Forlim CG, Fehrman C, Forster C, Paulus M, Shing YL, Kühn S. I know that I know nothing: Cortical thickness and functional connectivity underlying meta-ignorance ability in pre-schoolers. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2019; 41:100738. [PMID: 31790955 PMCID: PMC6994539 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100738] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2019] [Revised: 07/11/2019] [Accepted: 11/20/2019] [Indexed: 01/22/2023] Open
Abstract
Metacognition plays a pivotal role in human development. The ability to realize that we do not know something, or meta-ignorance, emerges after approximately five years of age. We sought for the brain systems that underlie the developmental emergence of this ability in a preschool sample. Twenty-four children aged between five and six years answered questions under three conditions. In the critical partial knowledge condition, an experimenter first showed two toys to a child, then announced that she would place one of them in a box, out of sight from the child. The experimenter then asked the child whether she knew which toy was in the box. Children who gave consistently correct answers to this question (n = 9) showed greater cortical thickness in a cluster within left medial orbitofrontal cortex than children who did not (n = 15). Further, seed-based functional connectivity analyses of the brain during resting state revealed that this region is functionally connected to the medial orbitofrontal gyrus, posterior cingulate gyrus and precuneus, and mid- and inferior temporal gyri. This finding suggests that the default mode network, critically through its prefrontal regions, supports introspective processing. It leads to the emergence of metacognitive monitoring allowing children to explicitly report their own ignorance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elisa Filevich
- Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Lentzeallee 94, 14195, Berlin, Germany; Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, 10099 Berlin, Germany; Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Phillipstraße 13 Haus 6, 10115 Berlin, Germany; Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Luisenstraße 56, 10115, Berlin, Germany.
| | - Caroline Garcia Forlim
- Klinik und Poliklinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf. Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany.
| | - Carmen Fehrman
- Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Universiteitssingel 40, 6229 ER, Maastricht, the Netherlands.
| | - Carina Forster
- Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Luisenstraße 56, 10115, Berlin, Germany.
| | - Markus Paulus
- Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany.
| | - Yee Lee Shing
- Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Lentzeallee 94, 14195, Berlin, Germany; Institute of Psychology, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
| | - Simone Kühn
- Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Lentzeallee 94, 14195, Berlin, Germany; Klinik und Poliklinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf. Martinistraße 52, 20246, Hamburg, Germany.
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Hübscher I, Prieto P. Gestural and Prosodic Development Act as Sister Systems and Jointly Pave the Way for Children's Sociopragmatic Development. Front Psychol 2019; 10:1259. [PMID: 31244716 PMCID: PMC6581748 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01259] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2018] [Accepted: 05/13/2019] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
Children might combine gesture and prosody to express a pragmatic meaning such as a request, information focus, uncertainty or politeness, before they can convey these meanings in speech. However, little is known about the developmental trajectories of gestural and prosodic patterns and how they relate to a child's growing understanding and propositional use of these sociopragmatic meanings. Do gesture and prosody act as sister systems in pragmatic development? Do children acquire these components of language before they are able to express themselves through spoken language, thus acting as forerunners in children's pragmatic development? This review article assesses empirical evidence that demonstrates that gesture and prosody act as intimately related systems and, importantly, pave the way for pragmatic acquisition at different developmental stages. The review goes on to explore how the integration of gesture and prosody with semantics and syntax can impact language acquisition and how multimodal interventions can be used effectively in educational settings. Our review findings support the importance of simultaneously assessing both the prosodic and the gestural components of language in the fields of language development, language learning, and language intervention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Iris Hübscher
- URPP Language and Space, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
| | - Pilar Prieto
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, Barcelona, Spain
- Facultat de Traducció i Ciències del Llenguatge, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
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Pozuelos JP, Combita LM, Abundis A, Paz‐Alonso PM, Conejero Á, Guerra S, Rueda MR. Metacognitive scaffolding boosts cognitive and neural benefits following executive attention training in children. Dev Sci 2018; 22:e12756. [DOI: 10.1111/desc.12756] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2017] [Accepted: 09/20/2018] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Joan Paul Pozuelos
- Department of Experimental Psychology and Center for Research on Mind, Brain and Behavior (CIMCYC)Universidad de Granada Granada Spain
| | - Lina M. Combita
- Department of Experimental Psychology and Center for Research on Mind, Brain and Behavior (CIMCYC)Universidad de Granada Granada Spain
| | - Alicia Abundis
- Department of Experimental Psychology and Center for Research on Mind, Brain and Behavior (CIMCYC)Universidad de Granada Granada Spain
| | | | - Ángela Conejero
- Department of Experimental Psychology and Center for Research on Mind, Brain and Behavior (CIMCYC)Universidad de Granada Granada Spain
| | - Sonia Guerra
- Department of Experimental Psychology and Center for Research on Mind, Brain and Behavior (CIMCYC)Universidad de Granada Granada Spain
| | - M. Rosario Rueda
- Department of Experimental Psychology and Center for Research on Mind, Brain and Behavior (CIMCYC)Universidad de Granada Granada Spain
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20
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Geurten M, Bastin C. Behaviors speak louder than explicit reports: Implicit metacognition in 2.5-year-old children. Dev Sci 2018; 22:e12742. [PMID: 30159971 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12742] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/22/2018] [Accepted: 08/26/2018] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Recent research has shown that children as young as age 3.5 show behavioral responses to uncertainty although they are not able to report it explicitly. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that some form of metacognition is already available to guide children's decisions before the age of 3. Two groups of 2.5- and 3.5-year-old children were asked to complete a forced-choice perceptual identification test and to explicitly rate their confidence in each decision. Moreover, participants had the opportunity to ask for a cue to help them decide if their response was correct. Our results revealed that all children asked for a cue more often after an incorrect response than after a correct response in the forced-choice identification test, indicating a good ability to implicitly introspect on the results of their cognitive operations. On the contrary, none of these children displayed metacognitive sensitivity when making explicit confidence judgments, consistent with previous evidence of later development of explicit metacognition. Critically, our findings suggest that implicit metacognition exists much earlier than typically assumed, as early as 2.5 years of age.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marie Geurten
- Cyclotron Research Center, University of Liège, Liege, Belgium.,Psychology and Neuroscience of Cognition Unit, University of Liège, Liege, Belgium
| | - Christine Bastin
- Cyclotron Research Center, University of Liège, Liege, Belgium.,Psychology and Neuroscience of Cognition Unit, University of Liège, Liege, Belgium.,National Fund for Scientific Research, University of Liège, Liege, Belgium
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21
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Direct and indirect admission of ignorance by children. J Exp Child Psychol 2017; 159:279-295. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.02.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/06/2016] [Revised: 02/28/2017] [Accepted: 02/28/2017] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
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22
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Paulus M, Moore C. Preschoolers’ generosity increases with understanding of the affective benefits of sharing. Dev Sci 2016; 20. [DOI: 10.1111/desc.12417] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/29/2015] [Accepted: 01/14/2016] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Markus Paulus
- Department of Developmental Psychology; Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; Germany
| | - Chris Moore
- Department of Psychology; Dalhousie University; Canada
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