4 research outputs found
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Effortful Control of Attention and Executive Function in Preschool Children
Attention is widely considered a core process of Executive Function (EF), but it is not clear if it is a separable or integral component of EF in preschool children. Preschool children (n=137) completed a battery of tasks which included EF (i.e., response inhibition, working memory) and attentional control (AC) processes (i.e., sustained attention, selective attention). Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) indicated that a two-factor model with EF and AC as separate factors fit the data better than a unitary one-factor model. These findings are consistent with the view that EF and AC are developing at different rates during the preschool years, and thus are not yet fully integrated in the processing of information. The implications of how EF and AC should be conceptualized in early childhood are discussed
Infants’ Understanding of Others’ Goal-Directed Actions Covaries With Speed of Encoding
Woodward (2003) reported that twelve-month-old infants interpret another’s gaze and head shift (single fixation) as goal-directed. Johnson and colleagues (2007) reported that nine-month-old infants are also able to, if they observe equifinal action-paths (multiple fixations). The current study investigated how infants\u27 encoding speed relates to this comprehension. We tested fifty-nine 10-12 month old infants in a habituation paradigm similar to Woodward (2003), but stimuli were prerecorded videos of an actor performing a single or multiple fixations. We categorized infants\u27 encoding speed as slow or fast based on a median split of total habituation time. Encoding speed interacted with fixation condition, in that the multiple fixations stimuli helped fast-encoders interpret the action as goal-directed but the slow-encoders only interpreted the single fixation as goal-directed. These results indicate that encoding speed is a relevant factor of infant\u27s understanding of goal-directed actions