Claudia M. Roebers

The impact of misleading questions on eyewitness memory in children and adults

The study examined developmental patterns of the negative effect of misleading post-event information in two different kinds of eyewitness interviews. A total of 284 subjects aged between five and 64 years were shown a short video about a theft and three weeks as well as four weeks later questioned about it. The social pressure in the interview after three weeks was manipulated by asking half of the subjects suggestive and misleading questions. The other half was asked open-ended and unbiased questions. In the neutral interview four weeks later, all subjects were asked the same set of recognition questions about the event. The results revealed that preschoolers in particular had problems with the interplay between cognitive and social factors (social pressure induced through the wording of the misleading questions) in the interview setting after three weeks. In the neutral recognition test, all age groups were shown to suffer from prior misinformation to about the same extent. However, with an exception in the group of 6-year-old children the negative effect of prior misinformation on the accuracy of recognition proved to be due to items that were peripheral to the observed event. Copyright

How do different aspects of self-regulation predict successful adaptation to school?

Self-regulation plays an important role in successful adaptation to preschool and school contexts as well as in later academic achievement. The current study relates different aspects of self-regulation such as temperamental effortful control and executive functions (updating, inhibition, and shifting) to different aspects of adaptation to school such as learning-related behavior, school grades, and performance in standardized achievement tests. The relationship between executive functions/effortful control and academic achievement has been established in previous studies; however, little is known about their unique contributions to different aspects of adaptation to school and the interplay of these factors in young school children. Results of a 1-year longitudinal study (N=459) revealed that unique contributions of effortful control (parental report) to school grades were fully mediated by childrens learning-related behavior. On the other hand, the unique contributions of executive functions (performance on tasks) to school grades were only partially mediated by childrens learning-related behavior. Moreover, executive functions predicted performance in standardized achievement tests exclusively, with comparable predictive power for mathematical and reading/writing skills. Controlling for fluid intelligence did not change the pattern of prediction substantially, and fluid intelligence did not explain any variance above that of the two included aspects of self-regulation. Although effortful control and executive functions were not significantly related to each other, both aspects of self-regulation were shown to be important for fostering early learning and good classroom adjustment in children around transition to school.

Development of Cognitive Skills in Children with Motor Coordination Impairments at 12-Month Follow-up

The current study presents a 1-year follow-up investigation of the development of executive functions (i.e., inhibition, updating, and shifting) in children with motor coordination impairments. Cognitive and motor coordination skills of children (N = 94) aged between 5 and 7 years with and without motor coordination impairments were compared. A second focus of the study was on pre-academic skills. The results indicate marked stability of motor coordination impairments and persistent executive functioning deficits in motor-impaired children. Inhibition and shifting performance was consistently lower, compared to the children without motor coordination impairments. Moreover, children with motor coordination impairments showed lower pre-academic skills, facing a substantial disadvantage at the beginning of formal schooling. The combined cognitive and motor problems may be the result of an underlying inhibition deficit or a general automation deficit. Implications for intervention are discussed.

Cognitively Engaging Chronic Physical Activity, But Not Aerobic Exercise, Affects Executive Functions in Primary School Children: A Group-Randomized Controlled Trial

Although the positive effects of different kinds of physical activity (PA) on cognitive functioning have already been demonstrated in a variety of studies, the role of cognitive engagement in promoting childrens executive functions is still unclear. The aim of the current study was therefore to investigate the effects of two qualitatively different chronic PA interventions on executive functions in primary school children. Children (N = 181) aged between 10 and 12 years were assigned to either a 6-week physical education program with a high level of physical exertion and high cognitive engagement (team games), a physical education program with high physical exertion but low cognitive engagement (aerobic exercise), or to a physical education program with both low physical exertion and low cognitive engagement (control condition). Executive functions (updating, inhibition, shifting) and aerobic fitness (multistage 20-m shuttle run test) were measured before and after the respective condition. Results revealed that both interventions (team games and aerobic exercise) have a positive impact on childrens aerobic fitness (4-5% increase in estimated VO2max). Importantly, an improvement in shifting performance was found only in the team games and not in the aerobic exercise or control condition. Thus, the inclusion of cognitive engagement in PA seems to be the most promising type of chronic intervention to enhance executive functions in children, providing further evidence for the importance of the qualitative aspects of PA.

School enrolment and executive functioning: A longitudinal perspective on developmental changes, the influence of learning context, and the prediction of pre-academic skills

The present two-year longitudinal study addressed developmental changes in different aspects of executive functioning (i.e., inhibition, updating, and cognitive flexibility) in a sample of 264 children aged between 5 and 7 years. Of special interest were issues of developmental progression over time, the influence of learning context and the predictive power of executive functions and school context for emerging academic skills. The results revealed pronounced improvements in all executive measures, both over time and as a function of age. For the learning context, small and age-dependent effects on executive skills were found. Inhibition uniquely contributed to the prediction of aspects of emerging academic skills, over and above chronological age and language skills.

Improving young children’s free narratives about an observed event: The effects of nonspecific verbal prompts

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of two nonspecific verbal prompts in interviewing preschool children and second graders. Forty kindergartners (M age = 71.6 months) and 46 second graders (M age = 97.6 months) watched a 7 minute video about a gang of adolescent boys stealing money from another youth. Three weeks later they were interviewed about the content of the film under two experimental conditions. Both groups were first asked to report everything that they could remember about the movie. This initial instruction was then repeated twice for the no cues group. Participants in the verbal cues group were instead instructed to report everything they remembered seeing and everything they remembered hearing. In addition, verbal intelligence was measured for all participants. Children of both age groups reported significantly more information when they were interviewed under the verbal cues condition. The use of the verbal prompts did not affect the overall high levels of accuracy. Verbal intelligence showed a moderate positive effect on measures of recall but did not moderate the efficacy of the verbal prompts.

Das Arbeitsgedächtnis von 4- bis 5-jährigen Kindern. Theoretische und empirische Analyse seiner Funktionen

Zusammenfassung. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden Moglichkeiten und Grenzen der fruhzeitigen, moglichst genauen und differenzierten Erfassung von Arbeitgedachtniskompetenzen bei Kindern untersucht. An einer Stichprobe von N = 84 4- bis 5-jahrigen Kindern wurden acht verschiedene Aufgaben eingesetzt. Die eine Halfte der Kinder wurde nach drei Wochen einer Wiederholungsmessung unterzogen, die andere Halfte absolvierte zusatzlich Aufgaben zur Informationsverarbeitungsgeschwindigkeit und zu globaleren Masen der kognitiven Leistungsfahigkeit. Die Ergebnisse deuten auf eine zuverlassige, spezifische Messung verschiedener Arbeitsgedachtnisprozesse hin: Die Leistungen der 4-Jahrigen liesen sich von denen der 5-Jahrigen statistisch abgrenzen, die Test-Retest-Reliabilitaten erwiesen sich als hoch und es ergaben sich differentielle Zusammenhangsmuster zu den externen Messinstrumenten. Die faktorenanalytischen Auswertungen erbrachten eine nicht unbedingt modellkonforme Struktur des Arbeitsgedachtnisses, die auf eine...

Early metacognitive abilities: The interplay of monitoring and control processes in 5- to 7-year-old children

The goal of the current investigation was to compare two monitoring processes (judgments of learning [JOLs] and confidence judgments [CJs]) and their corresponding control processes (allocation of study time and selection of answers to maximize accuracy, respectively) in 5-, 6-, and 7-year-old children (N=101). Children learned the meanings of Japanese characters and provided JOLs after a study phase and CJs after a memory test. They were given the opportunity to control their learning in self-paced study phases and to control their accuracy by placing correct answers in a treasure chest and placing incorrect answers in a trash can. All three age groups gave significantly higher CJs for correct answers compared with incorrect answers, with no age-related differences in the magnitude of this difference, suggesting robust metacognitive monitoring skills in children as young as 5 years. Furthermore, a link between JOLs and study time was found in 6- and 7-year-olds, such that children spent more time studying items with low JOLs compared with items with high JOLs. In addition, 6- and 7-year-olds, but not 5-year-olds, spent more time studying difficult items compared with easier items. Moreover, age-related improvements were found in childrens use of CJs to guide their selection of answers; although children as young as 5 years placed their most confident answers in the treasure chest and placed their least confident answers in the trash can, this pattern was more robust in older children. Overall, results support the view that some metacognitive judgments may be acted on with greater ease than others among young children.

Cognitive and physiological effects of an acute physical activity intervention in elementary school children

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of an acute physical activity intervention that included cognitive engagement on executive functions and on cortisol level in young elementary school children. Half of the 104 participating children (6–8 years old) attended a 20-min sport sequence, which included cognitively engaging and playful forms of physical activity. The other half was assigned to a resting control condition. Individual differences in childrens updating, inhibition, and shifting performance as well as salivary cortisol were assessed before (pre-test), immediately after (post-test), and 40 min after (follow-up) the intervention or control condition, respectively. Results revealed a significantly stronger improvement in inhibition in the experimental group compared to the control group, while it appeared that acute physical activity had no specific effect on updating and shifting. The intervention effect on inhibition leveled out 40 min after physical activity. Salivary cortisol increased significantly more in the experimental compared to the control group between post-test and follow-up and results support partly the assumed inverted U-shaped relationship between cortisol level and cognitive performance. In conclusion, results indicate that acute physical activity that includes cognitive engagement may have immediate positive effects on inhibition, but not necessarily on updating and shifting in elementary school children. This positive effect may partly be explained through cortisol elevation after acute physical activity.

Cortical oxygen consumption in mental arithmetic as a function of task difficulty: a near-infrared spectroscopy approach

The present study investigated changes in cortical oxygenation during mental arithmetic using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Twenty-nine male volunteers were examined using a 52-channel continuous wave system for analyzing activity in prefrontal areas. With the help of a probabilistic mapping method, three regions of interest (ROIs) on each hemisphere were defined: The inferior frontal gyri (IFG), the middle frontal gyri (MFG), and the superior frontal gyri (SFG). Oxygenation as an indicator of functional brain activation was compared over the three ROI and two levels of arithmetic task difficulty (simple and complex additions). In contrast to most previous studies using fMRI or NIRS, in the present study arithmetic tasks were presented verbally in analogue to many daily life situations. With respect to task difficulty, more complex addition tasks led to higher oxygenation in all defined ROI except in the left IFG compared to simple addition tasks. When compared to the channel positions covering different gyri of the temporal lobe, the observed sensitivity to task complexity was found to be restricted to the specified ROIs. As to the comparison of ROIs, the highest oxygenation was found in the IFG, while MFG and SFG showed significantly less activation compared to IFG. The present cognitive-neuroscience approach demonstrated that NIRS is a suitable and highly feasible research tool for investigating and quantifying neural effects of increasing arithmetic task difficulty.