Developmental correspondence between action prediction and motor ability in early infancy.

乳児期初期における他者理解のメカニズムを解明. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2011-06-08How do infants understand the goals of others' actions? It has been proposed that action-understanding results from a mechanism whereby an observed action is mapped onto the observer's own motor representation of that action. However, direct evidence of the matching process in early infancy is difficult to find. Here we show the developmental correspondence between action prediction and motor ability by comparing gazing and grasping responses to interesting objects in 4- to 10-month-old infants and adults. The onset of infants' ability to predict the goal of others' action was found to be synchronized with the onset of their own ability to perform that action. Moreover, there was correspondence relationship between action-prediction ability and motor ability of same action. Our findings indicate that the ability to predict others' action goals requires a corresponding motor ability, providing ontogenetic evidence for a direct matching process by a mirror neuron system

Implicit social associations for geometric-shape agents more strongly influenced by visual form than by explicitly identified social actions

Studies of infants' and adults' social cognition frequently use geometric-shape agents such as coloured squares and circles, but the influence of agent visual-form on social cognition has been little investigated. Here, although adults gave accurate explicit descriptions of interactions between geometric-shape aggressors and victims, implicit association tests for dominance and valence did not detect tendencies to encode the shapes’ social attributes on an implicit level. With regard to valence, the lack of any systematic implicit associations precludes conclusive interpretations. With regard to dominance, participants implicitly associated a yellow square as more dominant than a blue circle, even when the true relationship was the reverse of this and was correctly explicitly described by participants. Therefore, although explicit dominance judgements were strongly influenced by observed behaviour, implicit dominance associations were more clearly influenced by preconceived associations between visual form and social characteristics. This study represents a cautionary tale for those conducting experiments using geometric-shape agents

The integration of audio−tactile information is modulated by multimodal social interaction with physical contact in infancy

Interaction between caregivers and infants is multimodal in nature. To react interactively and smoothly to such multimodal signals, infants must integrate all these signals. However, few empirical infant studies have investigated how multimodal social interaction with physical contact facilitates multimodal integration, especially regarding audio − tactile (A-T) information. By using electroencephalogram (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs), the present study investigated how neural processing involved in A-T integration is modulated by tactile interaction. Seven- to 8-months-old infants heard one pseudoword both whilst being tickled (multimodal ‘A-T’ condition), and not being tickled (unimodal ‘A’ condition). Thereafter, their EEG was measured during the perception of the same words. Compared to the A condition, the A-T condition resulted in enhanced ERPs and higher beta-band activity within the left temporal regions, indicating neural processing of A-T integration. Additionally, theta-band activity within the middle frontal region was enhanced, which may reflect enhanced attention to social information. Furthermore, differential ERPs correlated with the degree of engagement in the tickling interaction. We provide neural evidence that the integration of A-T information in infants’ brains is facilitated through tactile interaction with others. Such plastic changes in neural processing may promote harmonious social interaction and effective learning in infancy

Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability in Japanese children

子どものジェンダーステレオタイプが生じる時期を解明. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-10-12.Japan has a large gender gap; thus, this study examined whether Japanese 4- to 7-year-old children exhibit a “brilliance = males” stereotype and whether parental attitudes toward gender roles were related to children’s stereotypes. We also explored whether the children exhibited such stereotypes in response to various stimuli. We showed children photos (Study 1) and stick figures (Study 2) of men, women, boys, and girls, asking them to attribute traits (smart or nice) to each. Study 1 revealed overwhelming in-group positivity in girls, whereas the results for boys were rather mixed. In Study 2, girls generally attributed nice to their own gender compared to boys. However, “brilliance = males” stereotypical responses were observed from 7 years of age, when boys began to be more likely to attribute smartness to their own gender compared to girls. The new data in Study 3 replicated results of Study 1 and parts of the results of Study 2. Moreover, merging the Study 3 data with that of Studies 1 and 2 confirmed their findings. Furthermore, it replicated the “brilliance = males” stereotype among 7-year-olds in the stick figure task. Parental attitudes toward gender roles were unrelated to children’s gender stereotypes. The results indicated that Japanese children may acquire “brilliance = males” stereotypes later than American children (6-years-old). Furthermore, the results were clearer when children were presented with stick figure stimuli

Cognitive flexibility in 12-month-old preterm and term infants is associated with neurobehavioural development in 18-month-olds

早産児の注意の切り替えの弱さは後の認知発達と関連する --アイトラッカーを用いた注意機能の定量的分析から--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-01-11.There is growing evidence that preterm children are at an increased risk of poor executive functioning, which underlies behavioural and attention problems. Previous studies have suggested that early cognitive flexibility is a possible predictor of later executive function; however, how it develops in infancy and relates to the later neurobehavioural outcomes is still unclear in the preterm population. Here, we conducted a longitudinal study to investigate oculomotor response shifting in 27 preterm and 25 term infants at 12 months and its relationship with general cognitive development and effortful control, which is a temperamental aspect closely associated with executive function, at 18 months. We found that moderate to late preterm and term infants significantly inhibited previously rewarded look responses, while very preterm infants did not show significant inhibition of perseverative looking at 12 months. Moreover, lower inhibition of perseverative looking was significantly associated with lower general cognitive development and attentional shifting at 18 months. These findings suggest that the early atypical patterns of oculomotor response shifting may be a behavioural marker for predicting a higher risk of negative neurobehavioural outcomes, including attention-related problems in preterm children

Imaginary agents exist perceptually for children but not for adults

Mental imagery refers to representations and the accompanying experience of sensory information in the absence of appropriate sensory input. Little is known about children’s social imagery, imagery about an agent. It is possible that children’s social imagery may qualitatively differ from that of adults by involving more perceptual characteristics. We conducted three experiments to investigate the perceptual existence of social imagery when induced by verbal cues. Experiment 1 was a precondition for Experiments 2 and 3, and we examined whether children’s and adults’ predictive eye movements were disrupted by the presence of a real person’s face. Preschool children (n = 20) and adults (n = 20) watched a video where a woman, with/without her face shown, placed balls into a bucket. Participants’ gazes were less predictive of the woman’s actions in ‘Face’ versus ‘No-Face’ videos, indirectly indicating the perceptual presence of agents. Next, we examined whether adults’ and children’s predictive eye movements were affected by imagining a person. In Experiment 2, adult participants were presented with a video where the balls moved automatically and were asked to either watch the video (Ball condition, n = 20) or imagine that an invisible person moved the balls (Imagination condition, n = 20). Adult gazes did not differ between conditions. However, in Experiment 3, preschool children’s gazes were less predictive when imagining an invisible person’s actions (Invisible condition, n = 20) than when not imagining anything (Ball condition, n = 20) or when imagining an object (Fan condition, n = 20). The results suggest that children experience realistic social imagery induced by verbal cues

Building a responsive teacher: How temporal contingency of gaze interaction influences word learning with virtual tutors

Animated pedagogical agents are lifelike virtual characters designed to augment learning. A review of developmental psychology literature led to the hypothesis that the temporal contingency of such agents would promote human learning. We developed a Pedagogical Agent with Gaze Interaction (PAGI), an experimental animated pedagogical agent that engages in gaze interaction with students. In this study, university students learned words of a foreign language, with temporally contingent PAGI (live group) or recorded version of PAGI (recorded group), which played pre-recorded sequences from live sessions. The result revealed that students in the live group scored considerably better than those in the recorded group. The finding indicates that incorporating temporal contingency of gaze interaction from a pedagogical agent has positive effect on learning

Building a responsive teacher: How temporal contingency of gaze interaction influences word learning with virtual tutors

Animated pedagogical agents are lifelike virtual characters designed to augment learning. A review of developmental psychology literature led to the hypothesis that the temporal contingency of such agents would promote human learning. We developed a Pedagogical Agent with Gaze Interaction (PAGI), an experimental animated pedagogical agent that engages in gaze interaction with students. In this study, university students learned words of a foreign language, with temporally contingent PAGI (live group) or recorded version of PAGI (recorded group), which played pre-recorded sequences from live sessions. The result revealed that students in the live group scored considerably better than those in the recorded group. The finding indicates that incorporating temporal contingency of gaze interaction from a pedagogical agent has positive effect on learning

Belief-based action prediction in preverbal infants

Successful mindreading entails both the ability to think about what others know or believe, and to use this knowledge to generate predictions about how mental states will influence behavior. While previous studies have demonstrated that young infants are sensitive to others’ mental states, there continues to be much debate concerning how to characterize early theory of mind abilities. In the current study, we asked whether 6-month-old infants appreciate the causal role that beliefs play in action. Specifically, we tested whether infants generate action predictions that are appropriate given an agent’s current belief. We exploited a novel, neural indication of action prediction: motor cortex activation as measured by sensorimotor alpha suppression, to ask whether infants would generate differential predictions depending on an agent’s belief. After first verifying our paradigm and measure with a group of adult participants, we found that when an agent had a false belief that a ball was in the box, motor activity indicated that infants predicted she would reach for the box, but when the agent had a false belief that a ball was not in the box, infants did not predict that she would act. In both cases, infants based their predictions on what the agent, rather than the infant, believed to be the case, suggesting that by 6 months of age, infants can exploit their sensitivity to other minds for action prediction

Probing the strength of infants' preference for helpers over hinderers: two replication attempts of Hamlin and Wynn (2011)

Several studies indicate that infants prefer individuals who act prosocially over those who act antisocially toward unrelated third parties. In the present study, we focused on a paradigm published by Kiley Hamlin and Karen Wynn in 2011. In this study, infants were habituated to a live puppet show in which a protagonist tried to open a box to retrieve a toy placed inside. The protagonist was either helped by a second puppet (the “Helper”), or hindered by a third puppet (the “Hinderer”). At test, infants were presented with the Helper and the Hinderer, and encouraged to reach for one of them. In the original study, 75% of 9-month-olds selected the Helper, arguably demonstrating a preference for prosocial over antisocial individuals. We conducted two studies with the aim of replicating this result. Each attempt was performed by a different group of experimenters. Study 1 followed the methods of the published study as faithfully as possible. Study 2 introduced slight modifications to the stimuli and the procedure following the guidelines generously provided by Kiley Hamlin and her collaborators. Yet, in our replication attempts, 9-month-olds’ preference for helpers over hinderers did not differ significantly from chance (62.5% and 50%, respectively, in Studies 1 and 2). Two types of factors could explain why our results differed from those of Hamlin and Wynn: minor methodological dissimilarities (in procedure, materials, or the population tested), or the effect size being smaller than originally assumed. We conclude that fine methodological details that are crucial to infants’ success in this task need to be identified to ensure the replicability of the original result