Developing thoughts about what might have been

Recent research has changed how developmental psychologists understand counterfactual thinking or thoughts of what might have been. Evidence suggests that counterfactual thinking develops over an extended period into at least middle childhood, depends on domain-general processes including executive function and language, and dissociates from counterfactual emotions such as regret. In this article, we review the developmental evidence that forms a critical but often-overlooked complement to the cognitive, social, and neuroscience literatures. We also highlight topics for further research, including spontaneous counterfactual thinking and counterfactual thinking in clinical settings. © 2014 The Society for Research in Child Development

Defending simulation theory against the argument from error

We defend the Simulation Theory of Mind against a challenge from the Theory Theory of Mind. The challenge is that while Simulation Theory can account for Theory of Mind errors, it cannot account for their systematic nature. There are Theory of Mind errors seen in social psychological research with adults where persons are either overly generous or overly cynical in how rational they expect others to be. There are also Theory of Mind errors observable in developmental data drawn from Maxi-type false belief tests. We provide novel responses to several examples showing that Simulation Theory can answer these challenges

Young children retain fast mapped object labels better than shape, color, and texture words

We compared short- and long-term retention of fast mapped color, shape and texture words as well as object labels. In an exposure session, 354 3- and 4-year-old children were shown a set of two familiar and three novel stimuli. One of the novel stimuli was labeled with a new object label, color, shape or texture word. Retention of the mapping between the new word and the novel object or property was measured either five minutes or one week later. After five minutes, retention was significantly above chance in all conditions. However, after one week only the mappings for object labels were retained above chance levels. Our findings suggest that fast mapped object labels are retained long-term better than color, shape and texture words. The results also highlight the importance of comparing short- and long-term retention when studying children’s word learning

Young children's referent selection is guided by novelty for both words and actions

Young children are biased to select novel, name-unknown objects as referents of novel labels (e.g., Markman, 1990) and similarly favour novel, action-unknown objects as referents of novel actions (Riggs, Mather, Hyde & Simpson, 2015). What process underlies these common behaviors? In the case of word learning, children may be driven by a novelty bias favouring novel objects as referents (Horst, Samuelson, Kucker & McMurray, 2011). Our study investigates this bias further by investigating whether novelty also affects children’s selection of novel objects when a new action is given. In a pre-exposure session, 40, three- and four-year-olds were shown eight novel objects for one minute. In subsequent referent selection trials children were shown two pre-exposed and one super-novel object and heard either a novel name or saw a novel action. The super-novel object was selected significantly more that the pre-exposed objects on both word and action trials. Our data add to the growing literature suggesting that an endogenous attentional bias to novelty plays a role in children’s referent selection and demonstrates further parallels between word and action learning

Counter-intuitive moral judgement following traumatic brain injury

Several neurological patient populations, including Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), appear to produce an abnormally ‘utilitarian’ pattern of judgements to moral dilemmas; they tend to make judgements that maximise the welfare of the majority, rather than deontological judgements based on the following of moral rules (e.g., do not harm others). However, this patient research has always used extreme dilemmas with highly valued moral rules (e.g., do not kill). Data from healthy participants, however, suggests that when a wider range of dilemmas are employed, involving less valued moral rules (e.g., do not lie), moral judgements demonstrate sensitivity to the psychological intuitiveness of the judgements, rather than their deontological or utilitarian content (Kahane et al., 2011). We sought the moral judgements of 30 TBI participants and 30 controls on moral dilemmas where content (utilitarian/deontological) and intuition (intuitive/counterintuitive) were measured concurrently. Overall TBI participants made utilitarian judgements in equal proportions to controls; disproportionately favouring utilitarian judgements only when they were counterintuitive, and deontological judgements only when they were counterintuitive. These results speak against the view that TBI causes a specific utilitarian bias, suggesting instead that moral intuition is broadly disrupted following TBI

Get your facts right : preschoolers systematically extend both object names and category-relevant facts

There is an ongoing debate over the extent to which language development shares common processing mechanisms with other domains of learning. It is well-established that toddlers will systematically extend object labels to similarly-shaped category exemplars (e.g., Landau, Smith, & Jones, 1988; Markman & Hutchinson, 1984). However, previous research is inconclusive as to whether young children will similarly extend factual information about an object to other category members. We explicitly contrast facts varying in category relevance, and test for extension using two different tasks. Three- to four-year-olds (N = 61) were provided with one of three types of information about a single novel object: a category-relevant fact (‘it’s from a place called Modi’), a category-irrelevant fact (‘my uncle gave it to me’), or an object label (‘it’s called a Modi’). At test, children provided with the object name or category-relevant fact were significantly more likely to display systematic category extension than children who learnt the category-irrelevant fact. Our findings contribute to a growing body of evidence that the mechanisms responsible for word learning may be domain-general in nature

A brighter future : the effect of positive episodic simulation on future predictions in non-depressed, moderately dysphoric & highly dysphoric individuals

Previous research suggests depressed individuals have difficulties with future directed cognitions. For instance, compared with non-depressed individuals, they predict positive events are less likely to occur. Recent work suggests that episodic simulation of positive futures may represent a useful strategy for improving prospective predictions. The current studies investigated positive future episodic simulation as a method of modifying predictions regarding the likelihood of occurrence, perceived control, and importance of positive and negative future events. Experiment 1 compared positive episodic simulation to a neutral visualization task in a non-clinical sample. Predictions regarding future events were rated more positively after the use of positive episodic simulation but not as a result of neutral visualization. Experiment 2 extended these findings to show that future episodic simulation can be used to modify predictions, for both positive and negative events, in individuals experiencing significant levels of dysphoric mood and depressive symptoms. Taken together, these findings suggest that training in positive episodic future simulation can improve future outlook and may represent a useful tool within cognitive therapeutic techniques

Autistic Adults Show Similar Performance and Sensitivity to Social Cues on a Visual Perspective Taking Task as Non-autistic Adults

Autistic and non-autistic adults completed a visual perspective taking (VPT) task, reporting an object’s location from an actor’s perspective, or their own. On half the trials the actor looked at and reached for the object, and on half did not. Accuracy and reaction time were measured. In Experiment 1, both groups (N = 34, mean age = 24 years) responded slower when reporting the actor’s perspective, with no group differences in this effect. Experiment 2 included “other” VPT trials only. Both groups (N = 30, mean age = 25 years) showed sensitivity to the actor’s behaviour, more accurately reporting his perspective when he acted upon the object. No group differences were observed. In contrast to developmental studies, these experiments suggest similar VPT abilities in autistic and non-autistic adults

Why would a special FM process exist in adults, when it does not appear to exist in children?

Cooper Greve, and Henson (this issue)  caution restraint before accepting that a fast mapping (FM) process exists in adults. We welcome this, but would also add that the original rationale for studying FM in adults is not currently supported by developmental research. Despite the claims of several adult FM researchers, there is little evidence from developmental word learning research for a special hippocampus-independent FM process critical for children’s word learning

Cognitive correlates of pragmatic language comprehension in adult traumatic brain injury: A systematic review and meta-analyses

Effective pragmatic comprehension of language is critical for successful communication and interaction, but this ability is routinely impaired following Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) [1,2]. Individual studies have investigated the cognitive domains associated with impaired pragmatic comprehension, but there remains little understanding of the relative importance of these domains in contributing to pragmatic comprehension impairment following TBI. This paper presents a systematic meta-analytic review of the observed correlations between pragmatic comprehension and cognitive processes following TBI. Five meta-analyses were computed, which quantified the relationship between pragmatic comprehension and five key cognitive constructs (declarative memory; working memory; attention; executive functions; social cognition). Significant moderate-to-strong correlations were found between all cognitive measures and pragmatic comprehension, where declarative memory was the strongest correlate. Thus, our findings indicate that pragmatic comprehension in TBI is associated with an array of domain general cognitive processes, and as such deficits in these cognitive domains may underlie pragmatic comprehension difficulties following TBI. The clinical implications of these findings are discussed