Rosemary A. Rosser

Location Memory in Healthy Preterm and Full-Term Infants

Abstract Current research suggests that preterm birth, in and of itself, can have important consequences for the development of cognitive abilities. The research reported here investigated the development of egocentric location memory, and related attention behaviors, in preterm and full-term infants. In Experiment 1, healthy preterm and full-term infants were tested longitudinally at 2.5, 4.5, and 6.5 months of age on a location memory task. The preterm infants were tested at corrected age (i.e., age since expected due date). In this task, infants saw a toy lion hidden at one of two identical locations, a delay was imposed (5, 10, and 30 s at 2.5, 4.5, and 6.5 months, respectively), and then the lion either reappeared at the correct location (expected test event) or at the incorrect location (unexpected test event). At each age tested, the infants looked significantly longer at the unexpected than expected event, as if they remembered the correct location of hiding and found the reappearance of the lion at the incorrect location surprising. There were no reliable differences between the full-term and preterm infants. Results from a control experiment (Experiment 1A) suggest that the longer looking times to the unexpected event were not due to superficial differences between the two test events. Examination of attention behaviors (i.e., mean length of looks and trial length) during the encoding period also revealed no reliable differences between the preterm and full-term infants. However, looking times to the test events, and mean length of looks during the encoding period, decreased reliably with age. Experiment 2 was conducted to investigate whether the observed changes in attention could be attributed repeated exposure to the test events or to longer delay intervals. The results of Experiment 2 suggest that the observed changes in attention were not due to either of these factors. Together, the results of Experiments 1 and 2 suggest that (a) even very young infants can represent and remember the location of a hidden object, (b) attention behaviors during the location memory task change reliably with age, and (c) uncomplicated premature birth has no obvious effect on the development of location memory and related attentional abilities during the first 6.5 months corrected age.

The role of stimulus salience in young children's ability to discriminate two-dimensional rotations: Reflections on a paradigm

Abstract Childrens ability to discriminate reflections and rotations of visual stimuli was examined within the confines of a mental rotation task. It was hypothesized that success would be affected by both characteristics of the stimulus and by the subtlety of the discrimination required. Forty 3- to 4-year-old children were directed to mentally rotate a stimulus a given number of degrees and to discriminate the appearance of the rotated stimulus from among a set of alternatives. Four stimuli differing in the number of visual orientation cues were utilized across 24 trials. A significant effect was found for number of orientation cues, and data indicated the difficulty children experienced detecting reflections, a task which bears close resemblance to the yes/no option in prototypic rotation studies. Children were only successful with a limited range of stimuli when discrimination of a reflected foil was not required. Results are discussed in light of discrepant findings about childrens kinetic imagery ability and the advisability of using this particular paradigm with young Children.

Cognitive Markers of Adolescent Risk Taking: A Correlate of Drug Abuse in At-Risk Individuals

Behavioral traits associated with adolescent risk taking may be correlated with maturational events occurring in the brain. Adolescent brains are less developed than previously believed, particularly in prefrontal cortex, a region implicated in moderating behavior related to drug use. One indictor used to assess frontal lobe functioning is the Tower of Hanoi. The authors compared substance-involved adolescents with a control group of resilient youth on their Tower of Hanoi performance and detected significantly different error patterns across the two groups. Resilient youths made fewer moves and spent more time per move; their substance-involved counterparts made more moves and spent less time per move, a strategy that could be construed as impulsive.

A multivariable analysis of spatial abilities by sex

Abstract This article presents a series of studies investigating the influence of experimental factors and the personological variables of age and sex upon spatial abilities. It was hypothesized that the overall equivocal findings typical of spatial research may be partially due to the use of different factors across studies. The experimental variables of spatial factor, task demands, spatial information type, information-processing mode, and response mode were systematically manipulated across the eight studies. In each individual analysis of data collected in a specific study, no significant main effect sex differences were detected. However, when a meta-analytic review of the studies was conducted, both spatial information dimensionality and information dimensionality × spatial factor assessed proved to be influential on male and female spatial performances. Female performance was superior when the dimensionality of stimulus and response variables was invariant. Males had the advantage when dimensionality crossing was necessitated. The discrepancy between the sexes was particularly dramatic when the spatial orientation factor was tapped.

Visual Perspective Taking in Children: Further Ramifications of an Information-Processing Model

Forty children between ages 6 and 8 were administered a set of spatial perspective tasks. On half of the items, children responded by rotating a duplicate of the target display; on the remainder, children reconstructed the displays to correspond to a perspective view. The displays differed as to whether they contained marked or unmarked objects. On the basis of an information-processing analysis of these tasks, we predicted that the response-type variables and stimulus variables would interact in known ways. Analysis of variance results revealed a good fit with the hypothesized outcomes. Main effects were detected for age, which favored older children, and for display, which favored unmarked objects; the rotation task proved easier. Significant interactions revealed that task demands increasing task difficulty were more problematic in the construction task than in the rotation task, as predicted.

The Function of Response Mode in the Coordination of Perspectives.

Abstract Visual perspective taking has attracted research interest as a result of Piagetian formulations regarding its ontogenesis. Some investigators have interpreted failure as a consequence of egocentrism while others have hypothesized task variables as the source of failure. The present study directly compared the effects of a picture selection response with a rotational one. Forty 3-year-olds and forty 4-year-olds were compared on the response modes. Half the children indicated perspective inferences by selecting from a set of photographs while the others rotated a replica. Children were tested on three nonegocentric perspectives. The data were analyzed with a 2(age) × 2(response mode) ANOVA. Significant effects were found for response mode and the age × response interaction. It was concluded that while both 3- and 4-year olds were able to demonstrate perspective-taking competence, the 3-year-olds performed better with the turning task; 4-year-olds were equally successful in either mode.

Reconceptualizing perceptual development: The identification of some dimensions of spatial competence in young children☆

Abstract In this examination of young childrens acquisition of geometric skills, spatial performances were conceptualized as specific combinations of actions applied within stimulus contexts. Since both actions and context can vary, a number of different combinations can be specified. In this study, the relationships among eight such combinations were examined and predicted patterns compared with observed ones. Fifty-four 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children were presented with 24 geometric displays depicting a variety of geometric relations. Subjects were required to either match or recall the displays in both a reconstruction and a recognition task format thereby responding across different types of action demands. The geometric displays depicted information organized either around a single axis (horizontal or vertical) or around both axes, the variation in context. The results of a mixed design ANOVA revealed a good fit with the hypothesized predictions. The findings are discussed in terms of the development of spatial skills, information theory, and of skill generalization.

The Differential Salience of Spatial Information Features in the Geometric Reproductions of Young Children

To assess the differential salience of geometric features embedded in spatial displays, 60 preschool children, 3 to 5 years old, were required to reconstruct a series of geometric displays. Each arrangement included the depiction of a topological feature, unconnectedness; a Euclidean feature, linearity; and a projective feature, orientation. Children built their reconstructions under two demand conditions. The reconstructions were scored for the number that preserved each of the different geometric features. Results from a mixed-design analysis of variance revealed main effects for age, demand condition, and geometric feature, as well as for several first-order interactions. Data indicated that the Euclidean feature was the most salient and most frequently preserved characteristic and that the topological and projective ones were more problematic. The findings were discussed as a contrast to Piagetian predictions.

Information Use by Preschool Children in Altruistic Decision-Making: An Exploratory Investigation of Donating Behavior

Summary It was hypothesized that young children would choose to make or not to make donation responses on the basis of available information, some of which would be based on cognitive maturity, and some of which would be situational. Ninety preschool children were randomly assigned to nine treatment conditions which varied information regarding the value of a donation response both to the recipient and the donator. Results indicated that it was possible to lower donation rates, as compared to controls, by providing negative evaluations; it was not possible to raise them with positive evaluations. Results are discussed in terms of a synthesis of the differential predictions from learning and cognitive-developmental perspectives.