Attention orienting by gaze and facial expressions across development

This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal ©. It is not the copy of record. To view the final vesion go to http://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0030463.Processing of facial expressions has been shown to potentiate orienting of attention toward the direction signaled by gaze in adults, an important social-cognitive function. However, little is known about how this social attention skill develops. This study is the first to examine the developmental trajectory of the gaze orienting effect (GOE), its modulations by facial expressions, and its links with theory of mind (ToM) abilities. Dynamic emotional stimuli were presented to 222 participants (7-25 years old) with normal trait anxiety using a gaze-cuing paradigm. The GOE was found as early as 7 years of age and decreased linearly until 12-13 years, at which point adult levels were reached. Both fearful and surprised expressions enhanced the GOE compared with neutral expressions. The GOE for fearful faces was also larger than for joyful and angry expressions. These effects did not interact with age and were not driven by intertrial variance. Importantly, the GOE did not correlate with ToM abilities as assessed by the "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test. The implication of these findings for clinical and typically developing populations is discussed

Children's sharing with collaborators versus competitors: The impact of theory of mind and executive functioning

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2018.08.001. © 2018. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/While children show an appreciation for fairness, their sharing does not always reflect such principles. This work examined how contextual factors (competition/cooperation; self/other perspective) and socio-cognitive skills impact children's sharing. Children (4- to 6-year-olds and 7- to 9-year-olds) set up games played either with (cooperative) or against (competitive) peers. The set up involved allocating resources necessary to completing the task (e.g., blocks used to build towers). Children also completed measures of executive functioning and mentalizing skills. Children who focused on the perspective of their social partner prior to allocating resources shared fewer items than those who reflected on their own perspective. Fewer items were shared in the competitive (versus cooperative) context and younger (versus older) children shared fewer items. Age moderated the relationship between executive functioning and sharing: younger children with more proficient executive skills tended to share more items, whereas this pattern did not emerge in the older group.Funder 1, This research was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant awarded to E

Cognitive and behavioural predictors of adolescents' communicative perspective-taking and social relationships

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2017.01.004. © 2017. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Given the pivotal role that social interactions play for adolescents' well-being, understanding the factors that influence communication is key. The present study examined relations between adolescents' communicative perspective-taking, executive function skills, and ADHD traits and explored the role communicative perspective-taking plays in peer relations. Data was collected from a community sample of 15 to 19-years-olds (N = 46) in Waterloo, Canada. Two communicative perspective-taking tasks required participants to infer speakers' communicative intentions. A battery of tasks assessed adolescents' working memory and inhibitory control. Elevated ADHD traits were associated with weaker working memory, inhibitory control, and communicative perspective-taking. Working memory was the strongest predictor of communicative perspective-taking. Highlighting the importance of communicative perspective-taking for social interactions, adolescents with weaker skills in this area reported worse peer relations. Findings underscore the importance of communicative perspective-taking for adolescents' social relations and have relevance for understanding the social difficulties faced by adolescents with elevated ADHD traits

Is That How You Should Talk to Her? Using Appropriate Prosody Affects Adults’, But Not Children’s, Judgments of Communicators’ Competence

Varghese, A. & Nilsen, E. S., Journal of Language & Social Psychology, SAGE ( 39), 738-750 pp. xx-xx. Copyright © 2019 (SAGE Publications). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X19871692Two studies explored whether the appropriateness of a speaker’s prosodic style (i.e., pitch, volume, speech rate) affects observers’ judgments of speakers’ and listeners’ competence. Adults and school-aged children watched videos of speakers addressing a listener using prosodic styles that were either appropriate (e.g., adult-directed for an adult listener), or inappropriate (e.g., child-directed for an adult listener). Adults, but not children, awarded higher ratings in some domains of communicative competence to speakers and listeners when a speaker used appropriate prosodic styles.Funder 1, The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Doctoral Fellowship awarded to the first author and a SSHRC Insight Grant awarded to the second author

Shy children's understanding of irony: Better comprehension does not always mean better socioemotional functioning

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Mewhort-Buist, T. A., & Nilsen, E. S., (2019). Shy children’s understanding of irony: Better comprehension does not always mean better socioemotional functioning. Infant and Child Development, 28(3), e2131. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2131, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2131. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.Childhood shyness is a risk factor for negative socioemotional outcomes including loneliness and depression. Childhood shyness has also been found to relate to various aspects of pragmatic language. For instance, shyer children rate ironic criticisms (i.e., where a speaker's intended meaning is the opposite of what is literally said) as meaner than do less shy children. This study examined whether relations between shyness and socioemotional functioning (i.e., loneliness, depression, and peer experiences) in children (9–12 years old; N = 169) were moderated by irony comprehension ability. Using a series of vignettes and self-report measures, it was found that shyer children with better irony comprehension skill reported increased loneliness and depression symptoms, as well as fewer prosocial experiences with peers. Similarly, for girls, better comprehension strengthened the relationship between shyness and peer victimization. In contrast, for shy boys, better irony comprehension was associated with a reduction in peer victimization. Thus, for certain vulnerable populations, having better sociocommunicative skills may not be advantageous

Shy individuals’ interpretations of counterfactual verbal irony

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Metaphor and Symbol on 2017-10-31, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2017.1384275.Counterfactual verbal irony, an evaluative form of figurative language wherein a speaker’s intended meaning is opposite to the literal meaning of his or her words, is used to serve many social goals. Despite recent calls for theoretical accounts to include the factors that influence irony interpretation, few studies have examined the individual differences that may impact verbal irony interpretation. The present study examined whether adults with elevated shyness would generate more negative interpretations of ironic statements. University students with varying degrees of shyness listened to stories (accompanied by comics) wherein one character made literal or ironic criticisms or compliments to another character. Participants then appraised each speaker’s belief and attitude. Self-reported shyness did not predict comprehension of the counterfactual nature of ironic statements. However, shyer adults rated speakers who made ironic compliments as being meaner than did adults low in shyness. Thus, while understanding that ironic speakers intended to communicate their true beliefs, shyer individuals construed the social meaning of irony more negatively. Such interpretive biases may lead shy individuals to more frequently take offense at ironic compliments and experience more negativity in social interactions.Funder 1, This work was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Canadian Graduate Scholarship to T. Mewhort-Buist and SSHRC Insight Grant to E. Nilsen

Children accept information from incongruent speakers when the context explains the communicative incongruence

The final publication is available at Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogdev.2019.100813. © 2019. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Past work has shown that children are less likely to solicit information from speakers who use incongruent communicative cues (i.e., demonstrate an emotion nonverbally that differs from the emotional valence of the words) versus those who use congruent cues. The present study explored whether school-age children show flexibility in their decisions to avoid incongruent speakers based on the situational context and speakers’ awareness of the context. Older children (9–10 years old), but not younger children (7–8 years old), demonstrated this flexibility. Within a speaker reliability paradigm, incongruent speakers were more likely to be solicited for information when the situational context rendered their affect more appropriate. Moreover, older children showed appreciation for the speakers’ perspective; they were more likely to solicit information from incongruent speakers when the speaker was aware (versus unaware) of the context. Such findings demonstrate the growth in children’s ability to integrate various cues when judging information sources across the school-age years.Funder 1, This research was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Standard Research Grant awarded to EN

The relationship between children's executive functioning, theory of mind, and verbal skills with their own and others' behaviour in a cooperative context: Changes in relations from early to middle school-age

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Huyder, V., Nilsen, E., & Bacso, S. (2017). The relationship between children’s executive functioning, theory of mind, and verbal skills with their own and others’ behaviour in a cooperative context: Changes in relations from early to middle school-age. Infant and Child Development, 26(6), e2027. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2027, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2027. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.Learning to behave in socially competent ways is an essential component of children's development. This study examined the relations between children's social, communicative, and cognitive skills and their behaviours during a cooperative task, as well as how these relationships change at different ages. Early school-age (5–8 years old) and middle school-age (9–12 years old) children completed tasks to assess their executive functioning (i.e., inhibitory control, working memory, and planning), theory of mind, and verbal skills and participated in an interactive cooperative task. Because children participated in pairs, dyadic data analysis was used to examine the effect of individual characteristics on children's own and their partners' social behaviour. Results indicated that better theory of mind was related to lower levels of the competitive behaviours demonstrated by younger children, as well as by partners. In contrast, for older children, planning and verbal skills related to lower levels of competitive behaviour. The associations of theory of mind and planning skills with behaviour were significantly different between the early and middle school-age groups. Findings suggest that children may utilize different skills at various developmental stages to guide their social behaviours. Findings have implications for theories of children's social development, as well as for interventions aimed at enhancing social skills

Executive functioning moderates associations between shyness and pragmatic abilities

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Nilsen, E. S., Silva, J., McAuley, T. & Floto, S. (2020). Executive functioning moderates associations between shyness and pragmatic language. Social Development, 30(2), 554-574. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12485, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12485. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.While elevated shyness is associated with weaker pragmatic language abilities for some children, not all shy children demonstrate pragmatic challenges. Understanding the factors that may account for this variability is important as proficient pragmatic abilities have been found to protect shy children from subsequent socio-emotional maladjustment (Coplan & Weeks, 2009). Individual differences in cognitive processes may account for why some shy children evidence difficulty in pragmatic abilities whereas others do not. In the current study, associations between shyness, executive functioning (performance-based and parent-reported), and pragmatic abilities (knowledge and demonstrated abilities) were examined in a community sample of 8 to 12-year-old children (N = 81). Consistent with past work, shyness was associated with weaker pragmatic knowledge. However, parent-reported executive functioning moderated associations between shyness and both pragmatic knowledge and demonstrated pragmatic abilities in everyday activities. Only those shy children with weaker parent-reported executive functioning showed difficulties in their pragmatic abilities. That is, strength in applying executive functioning in everyday settings (or less executive dysfunction) seems to buffer shy children from pragmatic challenges. We discuss our results in terms of the way children acquire pragmatic competence and the temperamental and cognitive factors that may affect such development

Ratings of Everyday Executive Functioning (REEF): A parent-report measure of preschoolers’ executive functioning skills

©American Psychological Association, 2016. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pas0000308Executive functioning (EF) facilitates the development of academic, cognitive, and social-emotional skills and deficits in EF are implicated in a broad range of child psychopathologies. Although EF has clear implications for early development, the few questionnaires that assess EF in preschoolers tend to ask parents for global judgments of executive dysfunction and thus do not cover the full range of EF within the preschool age group. Here we present a new measure of preschoolers’ EF—the Ratings of Everyday Executive Functioning (REEF)—that capitalizes on parents’ observations of their preschoolers’ (i.e., 3- to 5-year-olds) behavior in specific, everyday contexts. Over 4 studies, items comprising the REEF were refined and the measure’s reliability and validity were evaluated. Factor analysis of the REEF yielded 1 factor, with items showing strong internal reliability. More important, children’s scores on the REEF related to both laboratory measures of EF and another parent-report EF questionnaire. Moreover, reflecting divergent validity, the REEF was more strongly related to measures of EF as opposed to measures of affective styles. The REEF also captured differences in children’s executive skills across the preschool years, and norms at 6-month intervals are reported. In summary, the REEF is a new parent-report measure that provides researchers with an efficient, valid, and reliable means of assessing preschoolers’ executive functioning