Karrie E. Godwin

Visual Environment, Attention Allocation, and Learning in Young Children When Too Much of a Good Thing May Be Bad

A large body of evidence supports the importance of focused attention for encoding and task performance. Yet young children with immature regulation of focused attention are often placed in elementary-school classrooms containing many displays that are not relevant to ongoing instruction. We investigated whether such displays can affect children’s ability to maintain focused attention during instruction and to learn the lesson content. We placed kindergarten children in a laboratory classroom for six introductory science lessons, and we experimentally manipulated the visual environment in the classroom. Children were more distracted by the visual environment, spent more time off task, and demonstrated smaller learning gains when the walls were highly decorated than when the decorations were removed.

Semantic similarity of labels and inductive generalization: Taking a second look

Prior research suggests that preschoolers can generalize object properties based on category information conveyed by semantically-similar labels. However, previous research did not control for co-occurrence probability of labels in natural speech. The current studies re-assessed childrens generalization with semantically-similar labels. Experiment 1 indicated that adults made category-based inferences regardless of co-occurrence probability; however, 4-year-olds generalized with semantically-similar labels that co-occurred in child-directed speech (e.g., bunny-rabbit) but not with non-co-occurring labels (e.g., crocodile-alligator). Experiment 2 indicated that generalization with semantically-similar labels increased gradually between 4- and 6-years of age. These results are discussed in relation to theories of early learning.

Development of inductive generalization with familiar categories

Inductive generalization is ubiquitous in human cognition. In the developmental literature, two different theoretical accounts of this important process have been proposed: a naïve theory account and a similarity-based account. However, a number of recent findings cannot be explained within the existing theoretical accounts. We describe a revised version of the similarity-based account of inductive generalization with familiar categories. We tested the novel predictions of this account in two reported studies with 4-year-old children (N = 57). The reported studies include the first short-term longitudinal investigation of the development of children’s induction with familiar categories, and it is the first study to explore the role of individual differences in semantic organization, general intelligence, working memory, and inhibition in children’s induction.

Development of Category-Based Induction and Semantic Knowledge

Category-based induction is a hallmark of mature cognition; however, little is known about its origins. This study evaluated the hypothesis that category-based induction is related to semantic development. Computational studies suggest that early on there is little differentiation among concepts, but learning and development lead to increased differentiation based on taxonomic relatedness. This study reports findings from a new task aimed to (a) examine this putative increase in semantic differentiation and (b) test whether individual differences in semantic differentiation are related to category-based induction in 4- to 7-year-old children (N = 85). The results provide the first empirical evidence of an age-related increase in differentiation of representations of animal concepts and suggest that category-based induction is related to increased semantic differentiation.

Development of Category-Based Reasoning in 4- to 7-Year-Old Children: The Influence of Label Co-Occurrence and Kinship Knowledge.

Category-based reasoning is central to mature cognition; however, the developmental course of this ability remains contested. One strong indicator of category-based reasoning is the propensity to make inferences based on semantically similar labels. Recent evidence indicates that in preschool-age children the effects of semantically similar labels are limited to a small subset of labels that co-occur in child-directed speech, suggesting that performance with these labels may reflect lexical priming rather than category-based reasoning. However, most co-occurring labels used in prior research refer to offspring-parent relationships (e.g., puppy-dog). Thus, it is possible that children in previous research performed induction by relying on kinship rather than co-occurrence information. To address this possibility, the current studies examined the role of kinship knowledge and label co-occurrence in induction in 4- to 7-year-old children and adults. The results point to a gradual age-related increase in the ability to spontaneously rely on kinship knowledge when making inferences.

Endogenously and exogenously driven selective sustained attention: Contributions to learning in kindergarten children.

Selective sustained attention is vital for higher order cognition. Although endogenous and exogenous factors influence selective sustained attention, assessment of the degree to which these factors influence performance and learning is often challenging. We report findings from the Track-It task, a paradigm that aims to assess the contribution of endogenous and exogenous factors to selective sustained attention within the same task. Behavioral accuracy and eye-tracking data on the Track-It task were correlated with performance on an explicit learning task. Behavioral accuracy and fixations to distractors during the Track-It task did not predict learning when exogenous factors supported selective sustained attention. In contrast, when endogenous factors supported selective sustained attention, fixations to distractors were negatively correlated with learning. Similarly, when endogenous factors supported selective sustained attention, higher behavioral accuracy was correlated with greater learning. These findings suggest that endogenously and exogenously driven selective sustained attention, as measured through different conditions of the Track-It task, may support different kinds of learning.

Inductive generalization with familiar categories: developmental changes in children's reliance on perceptual similarity and kind information

Inductive generalization is ubiquitous in human cognition; however, the factors underpinning this ability early in development remain contested. The present study was designed to (1) test the predictions of the naïve theory and a similarity-based account and (2) examine the mechanism by which labels promote induction. In Experiment 1, 3- to 5-year-old children made inferences about highly familiar categories. The results were not fully consistent with either theoretical account. In contrast to the predictions of the naïve theory approach, the youngest children in the study did not ignore perceptually compelling lures in favor of category-match items; in contrast to the predictions of the similarity-based account, no group of participants favored perceptually compelling lures in the presence of dissimilar-looking category-match items. In Experiment 2 we investigated the mechanisms by which labels promote induction by examining the influence of different label types, namely category labels (e.g., the target and category-match both labeled as bird) and descriptor labels (e.g., the target and the perceptual lure both labeled as brown) on induction performance. In contrast to the predictions of the naïve theory approach, descriptor labels but not category labels affected induction in 3-year-old children. Consistent with the predictions of the similarity-based account, descriptor labels affected the performance of children in all age groups included in the study. The implications of these findings for the developmental account of induction are discussed.

Monster Mischief: Designing a Video Game to Assess Selective Sustained Attention

Selective sustained attention, or the ability to allocate perceptual and mental resources to a single object or event, is an important cognitive ability widely assumed to be required for learning. Assessing young childrens selective sustained attention is challenging due to the limited number of sensitive and developmentally appropriate performance-based measures. Furthermore, administration of existing assessments is difficult, as childrens engagement with such tasks wanes quickly. One potential solution is to provide assessments within an engaging environment, such as a video game. This paper reports the design and psychometric validation of a video game Monster Mischief designed to assess selective sustained attention in preschool children. In a randomized controlled trial, the authors demonstrate that Monster Mischief is significantly correlated with an existing measure of selective sustained attention rs = 0.52, and more motivating for young children as almost 3 times more children preferred Monster Mischief to the existing measure.

The influence of label co-occurrence and semantic similarity on children's inductive generalization.

Semantically-similar labels that co-occur in child-directed speech (e.g., bunny-rabbit) are more likely to promote inductive generalization in preschoolers than non-co-occurring labels (e.g., lamb-sheep). However, it remains unclear whether this effect stems from co-occurrence or other factors, and how co-occurrence contributes to generalization. To address these issues, preschoolers were exposed to a stream of semantically-similar labels that don’t co-occur in natural language, but were arranged to co-occur in the experimental setting. In Experiment 1, children exposed to the co-occurring stream were more likely to make category-consistent inferences than children in two control conditions. Experiment 2 replicated this effect and provided evidence that co-occurrence training influenced generalization only when the trained labels were categorically-similar. These findings suggest that both co-occurrence information and semantic representations contribute to preschool-age children’s inductive generalization. The findings are discussed in relation to the developmental accounts of inductive generalization.