Mako Okanda

Language and Cognitive Shifting: Evidence from Young Monolingual and Bilingual Children

The relationship between language and cognitive shifting in young children was examined. Specifically, second language experiences from infancy as well as individual differences in monolingual language experience may affect performances on the Dimensional Change Card Sort Task. 54 Japanese-French bilingual children and two groups of Japanese monolingual children participated (ns = 18). One monolingual group was matched to the bilingual group on verbal ability and chronological age (VC monolingual group) and the other group was matched by chronological age but had higher verbal ability (C monolingual group). The results showed that the groups of children who were bilingual and monolingual with higher verbal ability performed the task significantly better than matched monolingual children. Language experiences may affect cognitive set shifting in young children.

Differences in Response Bias Among Younger and Older Preschoolers Investigating Japanese and Hungarian Preschoolers

Groups of children in Japan and Hungary aged 2 to 5 years were asked yes-no questions pertaining to familiar and unfamiliar objects by either strange adults or mothers. In Experiment 1, 3- to 5-year-old Japanese and Hungarian children were interviewed by strange adults, and 3-year-olds in both countries exhibited a yes bias for familiar objects. Japanese 3-year-olds exhibited a yes bias for unfamiliar objects as well. Japanese 4- and 5-year-olds exhibited a yes bias for familiar objects, whereas Hungarian 4- and 5-year-olds exhibited a nay-saying bias for unfamiliar objects. In Experiment 2, Hungarian 2-year-olds exhibited a yes bias for both familiar and unfamiliar objects when asked by strange adults. In Experiment 3, Japanese 3-year-olds exhibited a yes bias for both familiar and unfamiliar objects, whereas 4-year-olds did not exhibit it for familiar objects and exhibited a nay-saying bias for unfamiliar objects when they were asked by mothers. The results suggest that young preschoolers have a common mechanism for exhibiting a yes bias, but older preschoolers may have other reasons to exhibit response biases.

Do bilingual children exhibit a yes bias to yes-no questions? Relationship between children’s yes bias and verbal ability

The present study investigated whether bilingual children show a yes bias to yes-no questions. Japanese—French bilingual children, aged 2 to 5 years, were asked yes-no questions pertaining to objects’ properties and functions. At the same time, their verbal ability was tested. The children showed a strong yes bias regardless of their chronological age. The children were then divided into two verbal ability groups (higher and lower), and we found that children in the higher verbal ability group showed weaker yes bias than the children in the lower verbal ability group. Not only chronological age but also verbal age were relevant factors on a yes bias. In addition, like Japanese monolingual children, Japanese—French bilingual children tended to avoid answering ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Children’s attitude toward adults’ questions might be affected by cultural backgrounds.

Discovering Mind: Development of Mentalizing in Human Children

For human infants, agents—other humans—are the fundamental units of their social world. Agents are very special stimuli to infants. Researchers of objectperson differentiation have proposed a set of rules that infants may use during their interaction with people as opposed to objects. For example, (1990) suggested that infants may perceive people as perceptual events that are both self-propelled and goal-directed objects. In such case, adults also perceive people as agents with intention. (1995, p. 60) described an infant’s concept of human as follows: “Three aspects of human interactions that are accessible in principle to young infants are contingency (humans react to one another), reciprocity (humans respond in kind to one to anther’s actions), and communication (humans supply one another with information).” Spelke et al. showed that infants may interpreter an object’s movement with these three principles and the “principle of contact.” To explain the contact principle, they used the habituation procedure and showed that infants tended to assume that an object, if it moves, should have been set in motion by the push from another object (or person). On the other hand, there is no need to apply an external force for a social agent to move. They demonstrated that this kind of perception of agency has appeared in 7-month-olds. Agents are not simply physical objects with new properties added to them. On the contrary, they are entities of an animacy that can move on their own, breath, eat, drink, look, and engage in actions with objects or interact with other agents (Gomez 2004).

Response Tendencies of Four-Year-Old Children to Communicative and Non-Communicative Robots

This study examined response tendencies in 4-year-old Japanese children (N = 45) to yes-no questions asked by a communicative, or a non-communicative robot. The children watched a video of a robot that was either responsive (communicative condition), or unresponsive (non-communicative condition) to human actions. Then, all the children watched a video of the same robot asking yes-no questions pertaining to familiar and unfamiliar objects. The children in both conditions exhibited a nay-saying bias to questions about unfamiliar objects, with children in the non-communicative condition tending to show a stronger nay-saying bias than children in the communicative condition. Childrens response tendencies towards questions asked by humans and other agents are discussed.