36 research outputs found

    The flexibility of early memories: Limited reevaluation of action steps in 2-year-old infants

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    This study investigated the flexibility of 2-year-old infants’ retrieval and reenactment processes. In a delayed imitation paradigm, children were exposed to a constraint change (implemented by the distance of a target object) affecting the relevance of using a tool to obtain a goal (reach the object). In Experiment 1, during demonstration in the first session the tool was either relevant or irrelevant for reaching the goal, and 1 week later it either lost or gained its relevance, respectively. We found that when the tool became unnecessary (relevant to irrelevant change), children used it somewhat less than before and used it less compared with when the tool’s relevance remained the same (relevant to relevant, no change). When the tool became necessary after a constraint change (irrelevant to relevant change), children used the tool more than before, but not as much as in the Relevant–Relevant control condition. In Experiment 2, the timing of the constraint change (immediate or delayed) was varied in a modified version of the Irrelevant–Relevant condition, where practice before the constraint change was omitted. Children were not significantly more flexible in the immediate condition than in the delayed condition, and comparisons with Experiment 1 showed that performance did not change if we omitted the practice before the change. These results indicate that although 2-year-olds show considerable mnemonic performance, they face difficulties in adapting to constraint changes. We propose that this inflexibility may stem from infants’ inability to revise their evaluations formed in previous events due to their immature episodic memory capacities

    Three cognitive mechanisms for knowledge tracking: commentary on Phillips et al, 2020, BBS

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    We welcome Phillips et al.’s proposal to separate the understanding of ‘knowledge’ from that of ‘beliefs’. We argue that this distinction is best specified at the level of the cognitive mechanisms. Three distinct mechanisms are discussed: tagging one’s own representations with those who share the same reality; representing others’ representations (metarepresenting knowledge); and attributing dispositions to provide useful informatio

    Three cognitive mechanisms for knowledge tracking

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    n400 effect in infants in response to labelling occluded objects

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    3-year-old children’s memory flexibility allows adaptation to an altered context

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    Imitation provides a reliable method to investigate the developing memory functions in childhood. The present study explored whether 3-year-old children are able to revise their previous experiences after a 1 week delay in order to adapt to an altered context. We used a combined immediate (Session 1) and delayed (Session 2) imitation paradigm. The constraints (target object close/far) and relatedly the relevance of using a tool in a goal attainment task (irrelevant/relevant, respectively) changed between the sessions. We found that children in Session 1 used the tool only when it was needed (relevant/object far context). After the 1 week delay when the tool was previously irrelevant and then became relevant, children remembered the irrelevant act and applied it in the altered context. When the tool lost its relevance after 1 week, children used the tool less than before, but did not fully omit it, despite its reduced efficiency. We propose that the flexible restoration of a formerly irrelevant act and the maintenance of a formerly successful solution indicate flexibility of children’s memory when guiding imitation. This flexibility, however, interacts with children’s tendency to remain faithful to strategies that were previously ostensively demonstrated to them

    Infants' Understanding of Others’ Quantity Preferences

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