Experimental situation in the first study.

<p>(A) Children were introduced to an invisible agent named Hikaru and asked a sequence of questions about the properties of the agent. (B) A participant hugging Hikaru.</p

Participant profiles.

<p>Note. *P<.05.</p

Examples of spontaneous references to an imaginary agent.

<p>Note: C = Child, E1 = The first experimenter, E2 = The second experimenter.</p

My Neighbor: Children’s Perception of Agency in Interaction with an Imaginary Agent

<div><p>Children may treat an invisible entity as a live and thinking entity, known as an imaginary companion (IC). Some researchers suggest that this is simply pretend play, but it is possible that children experience agency in their interactions with ICs. Given the literature on cognitive science and social brain research, we hypothesize that young children may have an agent-perception system that responds to an invisible agent by which they may experience realistic agency in their interactions with ICs. In this study, children were introduced to an invisible agent and an invisible stone. However, they assigned biological and psychological properties to the agent but not the stone. The tendency of assigning such properties was stronger in children with ICs than in those without ICs. These results contribute to our understanding of cognitive and neural development in typical and atypical children.</p> </div

Descriptions of Imaginary Companions.

<p>Note. ^aStudy 1 N = 6, Study 2 N = 2.</p>b<p>Study 1 N = 20, Study 2 N = 15.</p

Results of the experiments.

<p>(A) Study 1. The response score was the proportion of “yes” responses (range 0–1.0). Score 0 means that children did not regard the item as an agent, whereas score 1 means that children attributed the item with biological and psychological properties. BIO = Biological, PSY = Psychological, PER = Perceptual. (B) Study 2.</p

Table_1_Parental responsiveness and children’s trait epistemic curiosity.DOCX

Curiosity, the desire to learn new information, has a powerful effect on children’s learning. Parental interactions facilitate curiosity-driven behaviors in young children, such as self-exploration and question-asking, at a certain time. Furthermore, parenting quality predicts better academic outcomes. However, it is still unknown whether persistent parenting quality is related to children’s trait epistemic curiosity (EC). The current study examined whether parenting practices, responsiveness, and demandingness are cross-sectionally related to the trait EC of children in different age groups (preschoolers, younger and older school-aged children). We adopted a shortened Japanese version of the parenting style questionnaire and modified the trait EC questionnaire in young children. A sample of 244 caregivers (87.37% mothers) of children (ages 3–12) was recruited through educational institutions in Japan and reported on their parenting practices and trait EC. All data analyses were performed using SPSS version 26. Hierarchical regression analyses were performed to determine the explanatory variables for children’s trait EC. Self-reported parental responsiveness significantly explained EC scores. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to show a cross-sectional relationship between parental responsiveness and children’s trait EC. Future research should clarify whether parental responsiveness in early childhood predicts children’s EC later in life.</p

Supporting information.

Shame can be defined as the emotional response to one’s violations of rules being exposed to others. However, it is difficult to objectively measure this concept. This study examined the psychophysiological indicators of shame in young children using behavioral methods and thermography, which measures facial temperatures that reflect blood flow changes related to emotions. Four- to six-year-old children participated in an “animal guessing game,” in which they lied about having violated a rule. They were assigned to either the exposure or the non-exposure group. In the exposure group, participants’ lies were exposed by the experimenter, whereas in the non-exposure group, their lies were not. Results showed that at the behavioral level, participants in the exposure group expressed characteristic behaviors of shame (e.g., embarrassed smiles) more often than those in the non-exposure group. Moreover, the nasal temperatures of participants in the exposure group were higher than those of participants in the other group after the lie was exposed. These results suggest that participants’ lies being exposed induced psychophysiological responses and consequently raised their nasal temperature. This finding indicates that psychophysiological responses can enable us to objectively measure higher-order emotions in young children.</div

Correlation between the temperature and the behavior data in each indicator.

Correlation between the temperature and the behavior data in each indicator.</p

A thermal imaging example of the facial temperature changes from the baseline to Phase 2 in the exposure group.

The first frame, second frame, and third frame show the temperature at baseline, Phase 1, and Phase 2, respectively. Color changes from darker to lighter shades signify a rise in temperature. The red region of interest is on the forehead and the blue region of interest is on the nose.</p