Influence of virtual reality training on the roadside crossing judgements of child pedestrians

The roadside crossing judgments of children aged 7, 9, and 11 years were assessed relative to controls before and after training with a computer-simulated traffic environment. Trained children crossed more quickly, and their estimated crossing times became better aligned with actual crossing times. They crossed more promptly, missed fewer safe opportunities to cross, accepted smaller traffic gaps without increasing the number of risky crossings, and showed better conceptual understanding of the factors to be considered when making crossing judgments. All age groups improved to the same extent, and there was no deterioration when children were retested 8 months later. The results are discussed in relation to theoretical arguments concerning the extent to which children's pedestrian judgments are amenable to training

Inhibitory control and counterintuitive science and maths reasoning in adolescence

Existing concepts can be a major barrier to learning new counterintuitive concepts that contradict pre-existing experience-based beliefs or misleading perceptual cues. When reasoning about counterintuitive concepts, inhibitory control is thought to enable the suppression of incorrect concepts. This study investigated the association between inhibitory control and counterintuitive science and maths reasoning in adolescents (N=90, 11-15 years). Both response and semantic inhibition were associated with counterintuitive science and maths reasoning, when controlling for age, general cognitive ability, and performance in control science and maths trials. Better response inhibition was associated with longer reaction times in counterintuitive trials, while better semantic inhibition was associated with higher accuracy in counterintuitive trials. This novel finding suggests that different aspects of inhibitory control may offer unique contributions to counterintuitive reasoning during adolescence and provides further support for the hypothesis that inhibitory control plays a role in science and maths reasoning

The developmental trajectories of spatial skills in middle childhood

The multidimensional structure of spatial ability remains a debated issue. However, the developmental trajectories of spatial skills have yet to be investigated as a source of evidence within this debate. We tested the intrinsic vs. extrinsic and static vs. dynamic dimensions of the Uttal et al. (2013) typology in relation to spatial development. Participants (N = 184) aged 6-11 completed spatial tasks chosen to measure these spatial dimensions. The results indicated that the developmental trajectories of intrinsic vs extrinsic skills differed significantly. Intrinsic skills improved more between 6 and 8 years, and 7 and 8 years, than extrinsic skills. Extrinsic skills increased more between 8 and 10 years than intrinsic skills. The trajectories of static vs. dynamic skills did not differ significantly. The findings support the intrinsic vs. extrinsic, but not the static vs. dynamic dimension, of the Uttal et al. (2013) typology

Children's understanding of drivers' intentions

To become more skilled as pedestrians, children need to acquire a view of the traffic environment as one in which road users are active agents with different intentions and objectives. This paper describes a simulation study designed to explore children's understanding of drivers' intentions. It also investigated the effect of training children's sensitivity, through peer discussion and adult guidance, to the cues by which drivers signal their intentions. Results confirmed that children's ability to accurately predict drivers' intentions improves with age and that sensitizing children through training to the options for action available to drivers when signalling a manoeuvre improves their accuracy in predicting drivers' intentions. Training was also found to shift children's focus from contextual infrastructural features of the traffic environment (e.g. traffic signals, stop signs) by which to judge drivers' likely intentions to the explicit cues that drivers use to signal their imminent actions (e.g. slowing down, moving into the kerb). Training on the simulation was also shown to transfer to practical decision making at the roadside

Road accident involvement of children from ethnic minorities A literature review

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