Young Children’s Sensitivity to Their Own Ignorance in Informing Others

Prior research suggests that young children selectively inform others depending on others’ knowledge states. Yet, little is known whether children selectively inform others depending on their own knowledge states. To explore this issue, we manipulated 3- to 4-year-old children’s knowledge about the content of a box and assessed the impact on their decisions to inform another person. Moreover, we assessed the presence of uncertainty gestures while they inform another person in light of the suggestions that children''s gestures reflect early developing, perhaps transient, epistemic sensitivity. Finally, we compared children’s performance in the informing context to their explicit verbal judgment of their knowledge states to further confirm the existence of a performance gap between the two tasks. In their decisions to inform, children tend to accurately assess their ignorance, whereas they tend to overestimate their own knowledge states when asked to explicitly report them. Moreover, children display different levels of uncertainty gestures depending on the varying degrees of their informational access. These findings suggest that children’s implicit awareness of their own ignorance may be facilitated in a social, communicative context.     

Processing Demands Impact 3-Year-Olds’ Performance in a Spontaneous-Response Task: New Evidence for the Processing-Load Account of Early False-Belief Understanding

Prior to age four, children succeed in non-elicited-response false-belief tasks but fail elicited-response false-belief tasks. To explain this discrepancy, the processing-load account argues that the capacity to represent beliefs emerges in infancy, as indicated by early success on non-elicited-response tasks, but that children’s ability to demonstrate this capacity depends on the processing demands of the task and children’s processing skills. When processing demands exceed young children’s processing abilities, such as in standard elicited-response tasks, children fail despite their capacity to represent beliefs. Support for this account comes from recent evidence that reducing processing demands improves young children’s performance: when demands are sufficiently reduced, 2.5-year-olds succeed in elicited-response tasks. Here we sought complementary evidence for the processing-load account by examining whether increasing processing demands impeded children’s performance in a non-elicited-response task. 3-year-olds were tested in a preferential-looking task in which they heard a change-of-location false-belief story accompanied by a picture book; across children, we manipulated the amount of linguistic ambiguity in the story. The final page of the book showed two images: one that was consistent with the main character’s false belief and one that was consistent with reality. When the story was relatively unambiguous, children looked reliably longer at the false-belief-consistent image, successfully demonstrating their false-belief understanding. When the story was ambiguous, however, this undermined children’s performance: looking times to the belief-consistent image were correlated with verbal ability, and only children with verbal skills in the upper quartile of the sample demonstrated a significant preference for the belief-consistent image. These results support the processing-load account by demonstrating that regardless of whether a task involves an elicited response, children’s performance depends on the processing demands of the task and their processing skills. These findings also have implications for alternative, deflationary accounts of early false-belief understanding.     

The Influence of Texting Language on Grammar and Executive Functions in Primary School Children

When sending text messages on their mobile phone to friends, children often use a special type of register, which is called textese. This register allows the omission of words and the use of textisms: instances of non-standard written language such as 4ever (forever). Previous studies have shown that textese has a positive effect on children’s literacy abilities. In addition, it is possible that children’s grammar system is affected by textese as well, as grammar rules are often transgressed in this register. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to investigate whether the use of textese influences children’s grammar performance, and whether this effect is specific to grammar or language in general. Additionally, studies have not yet investigated the influence of textese on children’s cognitive abilities. Consequently, the secondary aim of this study was to find out whether textese affects children’s executive functions. To investigate this, 55 children between 10 and 13 years old were tested on a receptive vocabulary and grammar performance (sentence repetition) task and various tasks measuring executive functioning. In addition, text messages were elicited and the number of omissions and textisms in children’s messages were calculated. Regression analyses showed that omissions were a significant predictor of children’s grammar performance after various other variables were controlled for: the more words children omitted in their text messages, the better their performance on the grammar task. Although textisms correlated (marginally) significantly with vocabulary, grammar and selective attention scores and omissions marginally significantly with vocabulary scores, no other significant effects were obtained for measures of textese in the regression analyses: neither for the language outcomes, nor for the executive function tasks. Hence, our results show that textese is positively related to children’s grammar performance. On the other hand, use of textese does not affect—positively nor negatively—children’s executive functions.     

Family Income Affects Children’s Altruistic Behavior in the Dictator Game

This study aimed to examine how family income and social distance influence young rural Chinese children’s altruistic behavior in the dictator game (DG). A total of 469 four-year-old children from eight rural areas in China, including many children left behind by parents who had migrated to urban areas for work, played the DG. Stickers comprised the resource, while recipients in the game were assumed to be either their friends or strangers, with the social distance (i.e., strangers compared to friends) as a between-subjects variable. Children donated significantly more stickers to their friends than to strangers. Moreover, children from lower income families donated more stickers than children from higher income families. However, no gender and parental migrant status differences in children’s prosocial behaviors were evident in this sample. Findings of this study suggest that children’s altruistic behaviours to peers are influenced by family characteristics since preschool age. The probable influence of local socialization practices on development and the possible adaptive significance were discussed.     

Reading the Mind in the Eyes or Reading between the Lines? Theory of Mind Predicts Collective Intelligence Equally Well Online and Face-To-Face

Recent research with face-to-face groups found that a measure of general group effectiveness (called “collective intelligence”) predicted a group’s performance on a wide range of different tasks. The same research also found that collective intelligence was correlated with the individual group members’ ability to reason about the mental states of others (an ability called “Theory of Mind” or “ToM”). Since ToM was measured in this work by a test that requires participants to “read” the mental states of others from looking at their eyes (the “Reading the Mind in the Eyes” test), it is uncertain whether the same results would emerge in online groups where these visual cues are not available. Here we find that: (1) a collective intelligence factor characterizes group performance approximately as well for online groups as for face-to-face groups; and (2) surprisingly, the ToM measure is equally predictive of collective intelligence in both face-to-face and online groups, even though the online groups communicate only via text and never see each other at all. This provides strong evidence that ToM abilities are just as important to group performance in online environments with limited nonverbal cues as they are face-to-face. It also suggests that the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test measures a deeper, domain-independent aspect of social reasoning, not merely the ability to recognize facial expressions of mental states.     

Levers for Language Growth: Characteristics and Predictors of Language Trajectories between 4 and 7 Years

Background

Evidence is required as to when and where to focus resources to achieve the greatest gains for children’s language development. Key to these decisions is the understanding of individual differences in children’s language trajectories and the predictors of those differences. To determine optimal timing we must understand if and when children’s relative language abilities become fixed. To determine where to focus effort we must identify mutable factors, that is those with the potential to be changed through interventions, which are associated with significant differences in children’s language scores and rate of progress.

Methods

Uniquely this study examined individual differences in language growth trajectories in a population sample of children between 4 and 7 years using the multilevel model for change. The influence of predictors, grouped with respect to their mutability and their proximity to the child (least-mutable, mutable-distal, mutable-proximal), were estimated.

Results

A significant degree of variability in rate of progress between 4 and 7 years was evident, much of which was systematically associated with mutable-proximal factors, that is, those factors with evidence that they are modifiable through interventions with the child or family, such as shared book reading, TV viewing and number of books in the home. Mutable-distal factors, such as family income, family literacy and neighbourhood disadvantage, hypothesised to be modifiable through social policy, were important predictors of language abilities at 4 years.

Conclusions

Potential levers for language interventions lie in the child’s home learning environment from birth to age 4. However, the role of a family’s material and cultural capital must not be ignored, nor should the potential for growth into the school years. Early Years services should acknowledge the effects of multiple, cascading and cumulative risks and seek to promote child language development through the aggregation of marginal gains in the pre-school years and beyond.     

Parents’ Education Shapes,but Does Not Originate,the Disability Representations of Their Children

The present research tested whether children’s disability representations are influenced by cultural variables (e.g., social activities, parent education, custom complex variables) or by cognitive constraints. Four questionnaires were administered to a sample of 76 primary school aged children and one of their parents (n = 152). Questionnaires included both open-ended and closed-ended questions. The open-ended questions were created to collect uncensored personal explanations of disability, whereas the closed-ended questions were designed to elicit a response of agreement for statements built on the basis of the three most widespread disability models: individual, social, and biopsychosocial. For youngest children (6–8 years old), people with disabilities are thought of as being sick. This early disability representation of children is consistent with the individual model of disability and independent from parents’ disability explanations and representations. As children grow older (9–11 years old), knowledge regarding disability increases and stereotypical beliefs about disability decrease, by tending to espouse their parents representations. The individual model remains in the background for the adults too, emerging when the respondents rely on their most immediately available mental representation of disability such as when they respond to an open-ended question. These findings support that the youngest children are not completely permeable to social representations of disability likely due to cognitive constraints. Nevertheless, as the age grows, children appear educable on perspectives of disability adhering to a model of disability representation integral with social context and parent perspective.     

Child Allergic Symptoms and Well-Being at School: Findings from ALSPAC,a UK Cohort Study

Background

Eczema and asthma are common conditions in childhood that can influence children’s mental health. Despite this, little is known about how these conditions affect the well-being of children in school. This study examines whether symptoms of eczema or asthma are associated with poorer social and mental well-being in school as reported by children and their teachers at age 8 years.

Methods

Participants were from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. Measures of child well-being in school were child-reported (n = 6626) and teacher reported (n = 4366): children reported on their enjoyment of school and relationships with peers via a self-complete questionnaire; teachers reported child mental well-being using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire [binary outcomes were high ‘internalizing’ (anxious/depressive) and ‘externalizing’ (oppositional/hyperactive) problems (high was >90th percentile)]. Child rash and wheeze status were maternally reported and symptoms categorised as: ‘none’; ‘early onset transient’ (infancy/preschool only); ‘persistent’ (infancy/preschool and at school age); and ‘late onset’ (school age only).

Results

Children with persistent (OR 1.29, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.63) and late onset (OR 1.48, 95% CI 1.02 to 2.14) rash were more likely to report being bullied, and children with persistent wheeze to feel left out (OR 1.42, 95% CI 1.10 to 1.84). Late onset rash was associated with high teacher-reported internalising behaviours (OR 1.61, 95% CI 1.02 to 2.54), and persistent rash with high externalising behaviours (OR 1.37, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.84). Child sleep and maternal mental health explained some of the associations with teacher-reported mental well-being.

Conclusion

Symptoms of eczema or asthma can adversely affect a child’s social and mental well-being at primary school. This suggests interventions, such as additional support or education of peers, should begin at early stages in schooling.     

Patterns and Predictors of Language and Literacy Abilities 4-10 Years in the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children

Aims

Oral language is the foundation of literacy. Naturally, policies and practices to promote children’s literacy begin in early childhood and have a strong focus on developing children’s oral language, especially for children with known risk factors for low language ability. The underlying assumption is that children’s progress along the oral to literate continuum is stable and predictable, such that low language ability foretells low literacy ability. This study investigated patterns and predictors of children’s oral language and literacy abilities at 4, 6, 8 and 10 years. The study sample comprised 2,316 to 2,792 children from the first nationally representative Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). Six developmental patterns were observed, a stable middle-high pattern, a stable low pattern, an improving pattern, a declining pattern, a fluctuating low pattern, and a fluctuating middle-high pattern. Most children (69%) fit a stable middle-high pattern. By contrast, less than 1% of children fit a stable low pattern. These results challenged the view that children’s progress along the oral to literate continuum is stable and predictable.

Findings

Multivariate logistic regression was used to investigate risks for low literacy ability at 10 years and sensitivity-specificity analysis was used to examine the predictive utility of the multivariate model. Predictors were modelled as risk variables with the lowest level of risk as the reference category. In the multivariate model, substantial risks for low literacy ability at 10 years, in order of descending magnitude, were: low school readiness, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander status and low language ability at 8 years. Moderate risks were high temperamental reactivity, low language ability at 4 years, and low language ability at 6 years. The following risk factors were not statistically significant in the multivariate model: Low maternal consistency, low family income, health care card, child not read to at home, maternal smoking, maternal education, family structure, temperamental persistence, and socio-economic area disadvantage. The results of the sensitivity-specificity analysis showed that a well-fitted multivariate model featuring risks of substantive magnitude did not do particularly well in predicting low literacy ability at 10 years.     

Theory of Mind and Emotional Functioning in Fibromyalgia Syndrome: An Investigation of the Relationship between Social Cognition and Executive Function

Background

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a syndrome primarily characterised by chronic, widespread musculoskeletal pain. In the aetiology of this syndrome a crucial role is played by complex interactions among biological, genetic, psychological, and socio-cultural factors. Recently, researchers have started to explore emotional functioning in FM, with their attention focused on alexithymia, a personality construct that affects the regulation of a person’s own emotions. On the other hand, the detection and experience of emotional signals from other people have only been sparsely investigated in FM syndrome and no studies have investigated the ability to represent other people’s mental states (i.e. Theory of Mind, ToM) in these patients. Here we present the first study investigating a large set of social-cognitive abilities, and the possible relationships between these abilities and the performance on executive-function tasks, in a homogenous sample of patients with FM.

Methodology

Forty women with FM and forty-one healthy women matched for education and age were involved in the study. Social cognition was assessed with a set of validated experimental tasks. Measures of executive function were used to test the correlations between this dimension and the social-cognitive profile of patients with FM. Relationships between social-cognitive abilities and demographic, clinical and psychological variables were also investigated.

Principal Findings

Patients with FM have impairments both in the regulation of their own affect and in the recognition of other’s emotions, as well as in representing other people’s mental states. No significant correlations were found between social cognition tasks and the subcomponents of the executive function that were analysed.

Conclusions

The results show the presence of several impairments in social cognition skills in patients with FM, which are largely independent of both executive function deficits and symptoms of psychological distress. The impairments reported highlight the importance of adequately assessing ToM and emotional functioning in clinical practice.     

Associations between Family-Related Factors,Breakfast Consumption and BMI among 10- to 12-Year-Old European Children: The Cross-Sectional ENERGY-Study

Objective

To investigate associations of family-related factors with children’s breakfast consumption and BMI-z-score and to examine whether children’s breakfast consumption mediates associations between family-related factors and children’s BMI-z-score.

Subjects

Ten- to twelve-year-old children (n = 6374; mean age = 11.6±0.7 years, 53.2% girls, mean BMI-z-score = 0.4±1.2) and one of their parents (n = 6374; mean age = 41.4±5.3 years, 82.7% female, mean BMI = 24.5±4.2 kg/m²) were recruited from schools in eight European countries (Belgium, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland). The children self-reported their breakfast frequency per week. The body weight and height of the children were objectively measured. The parents responded to items on family factors related to breakfast (automaticity, availability, encouragement, paying attention, permissiveness, negotiating, communicating health beliefs, parental self-efficacy to address children’s nagging, praising, and family breakfast frequency). Mediation analyses were performed using multi-level regression analyses (child-school-country).

Results

Three of the eleven family-related variables were significantly associated with children’s BMI-z-score. The family breakfast frequency was negatively associated with the BMI-z-score; permissiveness concerning skipping breakfast and negotiating about breakfast were positively associated with the BMI-z-score. Children’s breakfast consumption was found to be a mediator of the two associations. All family-related variables except for negotiating, praising and communicating health beliefs, were significantly associated with children’s breakfast consumption.

Conclusions

Future breakfast promotion and obesity prevention interventions should focus on family-related factors including the physical home environment and parenting practices. Nevertheless, more longitudinal research and intervention studies to support these findings between family-related factors and both children’s breakfast consumption and BMI-z-score are needed.     

The Relationship between Child Maltreatment and Emotion Recognition

Child abuse and neglect affect the development of social cognition in children and inhibit social adjustment. The purpose of this study was to compare the ability to identify the emotional states of others between abused and non-abused children. The participants, 129 children (44 abused and 85 non-abused children), completed a children’s version of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET). Results showed that the mean accuracy rate on the RMET for abused children was significantly lower than the rate of the non-abused children. In addition, the accuracy rates for positive emotion items (e.g., hoping, interested, happy) were significantly lower for the abused children, but negative emotion and neutral items were not different across the groups. This study found a negative relationship between child abuse and the ability to understand others’ emotions, especially positive emotions.     

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders Do Not Use Social Stereotypes in Irony Comprehension

Social and communication impairments are part of the essential diagnostic criteria used to define Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). Difficulties in appreciating non-literal speech, such as irony in ASDs have been explained as due to impairments in social understanding and in recognizing the speaker’s communicative intention. It has been shown that social-interactional factors, such as a listener’s beliefs about the speaker’s attitudinal propensities (e.g., a tendency to use sarcasm, to be mocking, less sincere and more prone to criticism), as conveyed by an occupational stereotype, do influence a listener’s interpretation of potentially ironic remarks. We investigate the effect of occupational stereotype on irony detection in adults with High Functioning Autism or Asperger Syndrome (HFA/AS) and a comparison group of typically developed adults. We used a series of verbally presented stories containing ironic or literal utterances produced by a speaker having either a “sarcastic” or a “non-sarcastic” occupation. Although individuals with HFA/AS were able to recognize ironic intent and occupational stereotypes when the latter are made salient, stereotype information enhanced irony detection and modulated its social meaning (i.e., mockery and politeness) only in comparison participants. We concluded that when stereotype knowledge is not made salient, it does not automatically affect pragmatic communicative processes in individuals with HFA/AS.     

“Vision for Action” in Young Children Aligning Multi-Featured Objects: Development and Comparison with Nonhuman Primates

Effective vision for action and effective management of concurrent spatial relations underlie skillful manipulation of objects, including hand tools, in humans. Children’s performance in object insertion tasks (fitting tasks) provides one index of the striking changes in the development of vision for action in early life. Fitting tasks also tap children’s ability to work with more than one feature of an object concurrently. We examine young children’s performance on fitting tasks in two and three dimensions and compare their performance with the previously reported performance of adult individuals of two species of nonhuman primates on similar tasks. Two, three, and four year-old children routinely aligned a bar-shaped stick and a cross-shaped stick but had difficulty aligning a tomahawk-shaped stick to a matching cut-out. Two year-olds were especially challenged by the tomahawk. Three and four year-olds occasionally held the stick several inches above the surface, comparing the stick to the surface visually, while trying to align it. The findings suggest asynchronous development in the ability to use vision to achieve alignment and to work with two and three spatial features concurrently. Using vision to align objects precisely to other objects and managing more than one spatial relation between an object and a surface are already more elaborated in two year-old humans than in other primates. The human advantage in using hand tools derives in part from this fundamental difference in the relation between vision and action between humans and other primates.     

Food Insecurity and Children’s Mental Health: A Prospective Birth Cohort Study

Food insecurity (which can be defined as inadequate access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets individuals’ dietary needs) is concurrently associated with children’s psychological difficulties. However, the predictive role of food insecurity with regard to specific types of children’s mental health symptoms has not previously been studied. We used data from the Longitudinal Study of Child Development in Québec, LSCDQ, a representative birth cohort study of children born in the Québec region, in Canada, in 1997–1998 (n = 2120). Family food insecurity was ascertained when children were 1½ and 4½ years old. Children’s mental health symptoms were assessed longitudinally using validated measures of behaviour at ages 4½, 5, 6 and 8 years. Symptom trajectory groups were estimated to identify children with persistently high levels of depression/anxiety (21.0%), aggression (26.2%), and hyperactivity/inattention (6.0%). The prevalence of food insecurity in the study was 5.9%. In sex-adjusted analyses, children from food-insecure families were disproportionately likely to experience persistent symptoms of depression/anxiety (OR: 1.79, 95% CI 1.15–2.79) and hyperactivity/inattention (OR: 3.06, 95% CI 1.68–5.55). After controlling for immigrant status, family structure, maternal age at child’s birth, family income, maternal and paternal education, prenatal tobacco exposure, maternal and paternal depression and negative parenting, only persistent hyperactivity/inattention remained associated with food insecurity (fully adjusted OR: 2.65, 95% CI 1.16–6.06). Family food insecurity predicts high levels of children’s mental health symptoms, particularly hyperactivity/inattention. Addressing food insecurity and associated problems in families could help reduce the burden of mental health problems in children and reduce social inequalities in development.     

Virtual Bystanders in a Language Lesson: Examining the Effect of Social Evaluation,Vicarious Experience,Cognitive Consistency and Praising on Students' Beliefs,Self-Efficacy and Anxiety in a Virtual Reality Environment

Bystanders in a real world''s social setting have the ability to influence people’s beliefs and behavior. This study examines whether this effect can be recreated in a virtual environment, by exposing people to virtual bystanders in a classroom setting. Participants (n = 26) first witnessed virtual students answering questions from an English teacher, after which they were also asked to answer questions from the teacher as part of a simulated training for spoken English. During the experiment the attitudes of the other virtual students in the classroom was manipulated; they could whisper either positive or negative remarks to each other when a virtual student was talking or when a participant was talking. The results show that the expressed attitude of virtual bystanders towards the participants affected their self-efficacy, and their avoidance behavior. Furthermore, the experience of witnessing bystanders commenting negatively on the performance of other students raised the participants’ heart rate when it was their turn to speak. Two-way interaction effects were also found on self-reported anxiety and self-efficacy. After witnessing bystanders’ positive attitude towards peer students, participants’ self-efficacy when answering questions received a boost when bystanders were also positive towards them, and a blow when bystanders reversed their attitude by being negative towards them. Still, inconsistency, instead of consistency, between the bystanders’ attitudes towards virtual peers and the participants was not found to result in a larger change in the participants’ beliefs. Finally the results also reveal that virtual flattering or destructive criticizing affected the participants’ beliefs not only about the virtual bystanders, but also about the neutral teacher. Together these findings show that virtual bystanders in a classroom can affect people’s beliefs, anxiety and behavior.     

Estimating the Inbreeding Depression on Cognitive Behavior: A Population Based Study of Child Cohort

BackgroundCognitive ability tests are widely assumed to measure maximal intellectual performance and predictive associations between intelligence quotient (IQ) scores and later mental health problems. Very few epidemiologic studies have been done to demonstrate the relationship between familial inbreeding and modest cognitive impairments in children.ObjectiveWe aimed to estimate the effect of inbreeding on children’s cognitive behavior in comparison with non-inbred children.MethodologyA cohort of 408 children (6 to 15 years of age) was selected from inbred and non-inbred families of five Muslim populations of Jammu region. The Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children (WISC) was used to measure the verbal IQ (VIQ), performance IQ (PIQ) and full scale IQ (FSIQ). Family pedigrees were drawn to access the family history and children’s inbred status in terms of coefficient of inbreeding (F).ResultsWe found significant decline in child cognitive abilities due to inbreeding and high frequency of mental retardation among offspring from inbred families. The mean differences (95% C.I.) were reported for the VIQ, being −22.00 (−24.82, −19.17), PIQ −26.92 (−29.96, −23.87) and FSIQ −24.47 (−27.35, −21.59) for inbred as compared to non-inbred children (p>0.001). The higher risk of being mentally retarded was found to be more obvious among inbred categories corresponding to the degree of inbreeding and the same accounts least for non-inbred children (p<0.0001). We observed an increase in the difference in mean values for VIQ, PIQ and FSIQ with the increase of inbreeding coefficient and these were found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). The regression analysis showed a fitness decline (depression) for VIQ (R² = 0.436), PIQ (R² = 0.468) and FSIQ (R² = 0.464) with increasing inbreeding coefficients (p<0.01).ConclusionsOur comprehensive assessment provides the evidence for inbreeding depression on cognitive abilities among children.     

Preschool Children’s Behavioral Tendency toward Social Indirect Reciprocity

Social indirect reciprocity seems to be crucial in enabling large-scale cooperative networks among genetically unrelated individuals in humans. However, there are relatively few studies on social indirect reciprocity in children compared to adults. Investigating whether young children have a behavioral tendency toward social indirect reciprocity will help us understand how and when the fundamental ability to form cooperative relationships among adults is acquired. Using naturalistic observation at a nursery school, this study examined whether 5- to 6-year-olds show a behavioral tendency to engage in social indirect reciprocity in response to their peers’ prosocial behavior toward a third party. The results revealed that bystander children tended to display prosocial behavior toward their peers more frequently after observing these peers’ prosocial behavior toward third-party peers, compared with control situations; this suggests that 5- to 6-year-olds may have an essential behavioral tendency to establish social indirect reciprocity when interacting with peers in their daily lives. In addition, bystanders tended to display affiliative behavior after observing focal children’s prosocial behavior. In other words, observing peers’ prosocial behavior toward third-party peers evoked bystanders’ positive emotions toward the helpers. Considering both the present results and previous findings, we speculate that in preschoolers, such positive emotions might mediate the increase in the bystander’s prosocial behavior toward the helper. In addition, an intuitional emotional process plays an important role in the preschooler’s behavioral tendency toward social indirect reciprocity in natural interactions with peers.     

Comparing Different Models of the Development of Verb Inflection in Early Child Spanish

How children acquire knowledge of verb inflection is a long-standing question in language acquisition research. In the present study, we test the predictions of some current constructivist and generativist accounts of the development of verb inflection by focusing on data from two Spanish-speaking children between the ages of 2;0 and 2;6. The constructivist claim that children’s early knowledge of verb inflection is only partially productive is tested by comparing the average number of different inflections per verb in matched samples of child and adult speech. The generativist claim that children’s early use of verb inflection is essentially error-free is tested by investigating the rate at which the children made subject-verb agreement errors in different parts of the present tense paradigm. Our results show: 1) that, although even adults’ use of verb inflection in Spanish tends to look somewhat lexically restricted, both children’s use of verb inflection was significantly less flexible than that of their caregivers, and 2) that, although the rate at which the two children produced subject-verb agreement errors in their speech was very low, this overall error rate hid a consistent pattern of error in which error rates were substantially higher in low frequency than in high frequency contexts, and substantially higher for low frequency than for high frequency verbs. These results undermine the claim that children’s use of verb inflection is fully productive from the earliest observable stages, and are consistent with the constructivist claim that knowledge of verb inflection develops only gradually.