Children's ascriptions of knowledge to others.

Piaget believed that young children were egocentric and would ascribe their own knowledge to another. In contrast, Wimmer, Hogrefe, and Perner (1988) found that children did not perform egocentrically when assessing another's knowledge. The present study was carried out to determine which claim was right. A familiar object was secretly placed in a box, and a child and others either looked in the box or did not look. Two of the main findings were that (a) 6-year-olds were significantly better than 3- to 4-year-olds at assessing the other's knowledge, even though both assessed the other's perception correctly (p?p?     

The belief-based emotion of suprise: The case for a lag in understanding relative to false belief.

Three experiments were carried out to determine whether there is a lag in predicting surprise relative to false belief. All 3 experiments used "backwards reasoning" tasks. The findings were that ( a ) there is a lag in predicting surprise relative to false belief, ( b ) by 5 or 6 years of age children claim that one will be surprised when they gain knowledge of that which they were previously ignorant or when they discover that they had previously held a false belief, ( c ) by 7 to 9 years of age they understand that surprise will more likely result from false beliefs rather than mere ignorance, and ( d ) children's difficulty understanding surprise as specifically belief-based does not likely stem from information processing limitations. It is argued that the lag likely results because children must build a new concept of surprise ( e.g., from desire- to belief-based ) . (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why do infants make A not B errors in a search task, yet show memory for the location of hidden objects in a nonsearch task?

In 4 experiments, infants aged 8 to 12 months were tested on A not B search tasks, and nonsearch A not B tasks following the violation-of-expectation paradigm. A 1-location task and 2 control tasks were also conducted. In the nonsearch tasks, a toy was hidden in A, moved to B, and retrieved after a delay from either A (impossible) or B (possible). Results showed significantly longer looking times at impossible events, indicating some memory for where the object was hidden and an expectation of where it should be found. This effect occurred at delays at which infants made the A not B error when searching, and at a longer delay of 15 s. The results showed clearly that infants have some memory for the object's location, even at delays at which they search at the incorrect location. Discussion centers on how these results are accounted for within explanations of the A not B error. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An experimental investigation of referential looking in free-ranging Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus).

The authors examined looking behavior between 15 Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus) infants and their mothers in the presence of a rubber snake (experimental period) and in the absence of the snake (control period). Two of the 15 infants looked referentially at their mother in the experimental period. Including both referential and nonreferential looks, the six older infants (aged 5 to 12 months) displayed a higher frequency of looks to mother than nine younger infants (aged 3 to 4.5 months) in the experimental period, but not in the control period. Older infants looked more to the mother in the experimental condition, whereas the younger infants looked more to the mother in the control condition, or looked equally in the two conditions. These results suggest that age is an important factor in determining looking behavior to mother in situations of uncertainty. Compared to hand-reared chimpanzees or human infants tested in standard social referencing paradigms, the infant macaques displayed a low rate of referential looking. Possible explanations for this are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Older (but not younger) siblings facilitate false belief understanding.

Results from 4 experiments and an analysis in which all data from 444 English and Japanese children are pooled show (a) a linear increase in understanding false belief with the number of older siblings, (b) no such effect for children younger than 3 years 2 months, (c) no helpful effect of younger siblings at any age (despite the large sample), (d) no effect of siblings' gender, and (e) no helpful effect of siblings on a task measuring children's understanding of how they know something. Discussion involves speculation about how older siblings may assist children (e.g., through pretend play and mental state language) and how different aspects of a theory of mind may develop through different means. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The ABCs of deception: Do young children understand deception in the same way as adults?

Most research suggests that it is not until age 4 that children understand deception as a means of creating a false belief. Yet children could have failed on these tasks because of either (1) conceptual problems (an inability to understand that deception is a means of creating false belief), or (2) pragmatic problems (an inability to articulate an understanding of false beliefs) and task complexity (an inability to follow the narrative or make appropriate inferences). Three experiments were conducted to determine why children might fail deception tasks, and results indicated that (1) children were no better at understanding deception whether they were "active deceivers" or observers of a deceptive act, and (2) children's difficulty appeared to be associated with a conceptual deficiency (e.g., they could leave clues that would lead another to a possible belief but not a false belief). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The face of aging: Sensitivity to facial feature relations changes with age.

Fundamental to face processing is the ability to encode information about the spatial relations among facial features (configural information). Using a bizarreness rating paradigm, we found older adults differed from young adults in rating configurally distorted faces (eyes, mouth inverted) as less bizarre across all tested orientations (0° to 180°), and were more vulnerable to orientation effects when faces were rotated beyond 90°. No age-related differences in perception of either unaltered faces or featurally distorted faces (eyes whitened, teeth blackened) occurred. These findings identify changes in sensitivity to configural information as an important factor in age-related differences in face perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Iodine Deficiency and the Brain: Effects and Mechanisms

Iodine is an essential micronutrient needed in human diets. As iodine is an integral component of thyroid hormone, it mediates the effects of thyroid hormone on brain development. Iodine deficiency is the most prevalent and preventable cause of mental impairment in the world. The exact mechanism through which iodine influences the brain is unclear, but is generally thought to begin with genetic expression. Many brain structures and systems appear to be affected with iodine deficiency, including areas such as the hippocampus, microstructures such as myelin, and neurotransmitters. The clearest evidence comes from the studies examining cognition in the cases of iodine deprivation or interventions involving iodine supplementation. Nevertheless, there are many inconsistencies and gaps in the literature of iodine deficiency, especially over the lifespan. This paper summarizes the literature on this topic, suggests a causal mechanism for iodine's effect on the brain, and indicates areas for the future research (e.g., using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional MRI to examine how iodine supplementation facilitates cognitive functioning).     

Older adults’ recognition of bodily and auditory expressions of emotion.

This study compared young and older adults’ ability to recognize bodily and auditory expressions of emotion and to match bodily and facial expressions to vocal expressions. Using emotion discrimination and matching techniques, participants assessed emotion in voices (Experiment 1), point-light displays (Experiment 2), and still photos of bodies with faces digitally erased (Experiment 3). Older adults’ were worse at least some of the time in recognition of anger, sadness, fear, and happiness in bodily expressions and of anger in vocal expressions. Compared with young adults, older adults also found it more difficult to match auditory expressions to facial expressions (5 of 6 emotions) and bodily expressions (3 of 6 emotions). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotion perception explains age-related differences in the perception of social gaffes.

Young (59) adults viewed videos in which the same individual committed a faux pas, or acted appropriately, toward his coworkers. Older participants did not discriminate appropriate and inappropriate behaviors as well as young participants. Older participants also scored lower than young participants on an extensive battery of emotion recognition tests, and emotion performance fully mediated age differences in faux pas discrimination. The results provide further evidence for the role of emotion perception in a range of important social deficits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)