Dissertations / Theses: 'Cognitive development'

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Blumen, Sheyla. "The development of cognitive abilities following the new outcomes of psychological theories." Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1997. http://repositorio.pucp.edu.pe/index/handle/123456789/101522.

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The most representative models of cognitive development following the new outcomes of psychological theories are presented. Then a brief analysis of the models in terms of six factors related to different areas in psychology and social sciences (importance of each stage, processes, knowledge, individual differences, context and limits in the cognitive development) is developed. Finally, an integration of the model developed by Sincoff and Sternberg (1989) is presented.
Se presentan los modelos más representativos del desarrollo cognitivo según los avances en las teorías psicológicas. Luego se realiza un breve análisis de los modelos en función a seis factores relacionados con diferentes áreas de la psicología y las ciencias sociales (importancia de cada etapa, procesos, conocimiento, diferencias individuales, contexto y limitaciones en el desarrollo cognitivo). Finalmente se presenta una propuesta de integración de los modelos actuales del desarrollo cognitivo desarrollado por Sincoff y Sternberg (1989)

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Akagi, Mikio Shaun Mikuriya. "Cognition in practice| Conceptual development and disagreement in cognitive science." Thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 2016. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10183682.

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Cognitive science has been beset for thirty years by foundational disputes about the nature and extension of cognition—e.g. whether cognition is necessarily representational, whether cognitive processes extend outside the brain or body, and whether plants or microbes have them. Whereas previous philosophical work aimed to settle these disputes, I aim to understand what conception of cognition scientists could share given that they disagree so fundamentally. To this end, I develop a number of variations on traditional conceptual explication, and defend a novel explication of cognition called the sensitive management hypothesis.

Since expert judgments about the extension of “cognition” vary so much, I argue that there is value in explication that accurately models the variance in judgments rather than taking sides or treating that variance as noise. I say of explications that accomplish this that they are ecumenically extensionally adequate. Thus, rather than adjudicating whether, say, plants can have cognitive processes like humans, an ecumenically adequate explication should classify these cases differently: human cognitive processes as paradigmatically cognitive, and plant processes as controversially cognitive.

I achieve ecumenical adequacy by articulating conceptual explications with parameters, or terms that can be assigned a number of distinct interpretations based on the background commitments of participants in a discourse. For example, an explication might require that cognition cause “behavior,” and imply that plant processes are cognitive or not depending on whether anything plants do can be considered “behavior.” Parameterization provides a unified treatment of embattled concepts by isolating topics of disagreement in a small number of parameters.

I incorporate these innovations into an account on which cognition is the “sensitive management of organismal behavior.” The sensitive management hypothesis is ecumenically extensionally adequate, accurately classifying a broad variety of cases as paradigmatically or controversially cognitive phenomena. I also describe an extremely permissive version of the sensitive management hypothesis, arguing that it has the potential to explain several features of cognitive scientific discourse, including various facts about the way cognitive scientists ascribe representations to cognitive systems.

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Lee, Saebyul. "Learning Abstract Numbers in Concrete Environment." The Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1482751226985893.

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Vilnay, R. "Cognitive levels in reading development." Thesis, Bucks New University, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.378527.

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Briscoe, Josephine Mary. "Cognitive development after preterm birth." Thesis, University of Bristol, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.266900.

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Magis, Weinberg Lucía Inés. "Cognitive control development in adolescence." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2017. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10040027/.

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Adolescence is a transitional period in which an increasing ability to coordinate basic cognitive control abilities is also particularly challenged by contextual factors in the environment. The aim of this dissertation was to examine the development of complex cognitive control in adolescence in relation to different socio-affective contexts at the behavioural and neural level. The dissertation presents three functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments. The first studies explored transient and sustained aspects of cognitive control, and how the context influences behaviour and brain activation during cognitive control tasks. Study 1 used a prospective memory task where the cues were more or less salient, affecting the need to proactively monitor the stimuli vs. react to more distinctive cues. Study 2 used a working memory task and manipulated the reward context, on a trial-by-trial or run-by-run basis. Study 3 used a relational reasoning task to investigate manipulation and integration of information and its sensitivity to the nature of this information, in particular whether making judgements in the social domain elicited specific brain activations compared to the non-social domain. All three studies were run in adolescent and adult participants, to allow the study of developmental changes in complex cognitive control at the behavioural and brain level. Study 1 found behavioural evidence for development of prospective memory in adolescence and neuroimaging evidence for sustained and transient activation of the frontoparietal network associated with monitoring costs for cue detection whilst being engaged in a different task. Study 2 found that in the context of sporadic rewards, both adolescents and adults combine a proactive and a reactive strategy to maximise performance. Reward had both sustained and transient effects on frontoparietal regions as well as subcortical regions involved in reward processing. Study 3 showed parallel recruitment of the social brain and the relational reasoning network during the relational integration of social information in adolescence and adulthood. Across the three studies, there was evidence for behavioural improvement with age, but no strong differences of haemodynamic brain changes between adolescence and adulthood.

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Blakey, Emma. "Deconstructing complex cognition : the development of cognitive flexibility in early childhood." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2015. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/12451/.

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The goal of this research was to gain a more comprehensive understanding of how cognitive flexibility (CF) develops in early childhood. Previous research on cognitive flexibility development has tended to focus solely on studying 3- to 4-year-olds on a single paradigm that involves children switching from one task to another while resolving response conflict. For example, children switch from sorting coloured shapes by a rule (e.g., colour) to sorting the same stimuli by a new rule (e.g., shape). This has led to the pervasive, but simplistic idea that children achieve CF when they overcome perseveration at age 4 (e.g., Munakata, 2012; Zelazo et al., 2003). Consequently, theoretical accounts of CF development have focused on explaining why 3-year-olds perseverate. Perseveration has been explained as either a failure of working memory or a failure of inhibitory control, and little progress has been made in testing between these two accounts. Three approaches were combined in the current research to address this issue: 1) A new paradigm was used to study cognitive flexibility, capable of examining different types of flexible behaviour; 2) 2-year-olds were studied for the first time on measures of CF to learn about its emergence; and 3) both individual differences studies and randomised control training studies were used to examine how working memory and inhibitory control contribute to the development of CF. Together, the findings challenge the prevailing view that CF development begins with perseveration at age 3 and flexible behaviour at age 4 due to increases in working memory or inhibitory control by showing that: 1) overcoming response conflict is not the only way children can demonstrate flexible behaviour; 2) key developments in CF occur prior to age 3; and 3) both working memory and inhibitory control contribute to CF development depending on the task demands. Collectively, the findings provide a more comprehensive and nuanced account of cognitive flexibility development.

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Smith, Mary Clare. "Relationships among Cognitive, Spiritual, and Wisdom Development in Adults." Cleveland State University / OhioLINK, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=csu1340804343.

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VAN, CLEAVE MATTHEW JAMES. "THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2007. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1186060901.

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Khan, Manizeh. "Thinking in Words: Implicit Verbal Activation in Children and Adults." Thesis, Harvard University, 2013. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10786.

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The relationship between language and thought has long been a topic of interest and controversy in cognitive science. In this dissertation, I address one aspect of this issue: when is language present during internal thought? Simple introspection tells us that we sometimes use inner speech, but is this the exception or the rule? Using eye-tracking measures, we investigated whether infants, children and adults implicitly activate verbal labels while silently looking at pictures of objects. In the first study, 4-year-olds, 7-year-olds and adults completed a working memory task. While the two older age groups spontaneously chose a verbal encoding strategy for the pictoral stimuli, the 4-year-olds did not, suggesting a late emergence for implicit language use. The second study, however, challenges this conclusion as we find evidence for spontaneous implicit verbal activation in 24-month-old infants during free-viewing of pictures of familiar objects. The final study provides a more detailed look at the nature of the implicit verbal representations that are activated in adults during visual image processing. Unlike the 24-month-old infants, and unlike adults engaged in a working memory task, adults in this visual image processing task did not robustly activate phonological representations but did show some evidence of lexical activation, perhaps at a more abstract level of representation. Taken together, these results suggest that: 1) even very young children spontaneously engage inner speech, 2) adults and children use implicit verbal labeling in different ways, and 3) different tasks can evoke different levels of implicit verbal activation.
Psychology

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Barrett, Frank J. "The development of the cognitive organization." Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies / OhioLINK, 1990. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1054652909.

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Weber, Raymond Joseph. "Development of a cognitive array system." Thesis, Montana State University, 2010. http://etd.lib.montana.edu/etd/2010/weber/WeberR0510.pdf.

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This thesis proposes a design for a cognitive array system for next generation wireless communication systems, combining the techniques of cognitive radios and adaptive array systems. This novel array system allows for the possibility of greater spectral usage and reuse, and improved communication ranges. In this thesis, numerous algorithms were studied to map an RF environment in both spatial and spectral domains that would be useful in this system. Towards this goal, direction of arrival estimation, frequency sensing and spectral hole finding algorithms were studied, in addition to a joint frequency and direction of arrival estimation algorithm. Beamforming was also studied as a means of improving signal quality and increasing range. Once the direction to a target was found, localization and tracking were studied to further refine the target's position and change in position over time. After the algorithms were studied in simulation to determine their properties, hardware calibration was performed followed by laboratory tests of the methods with a uniform circular array testbed at Montana State University to verify the expected performances.

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Wassenberg, Renske. "Differential cognitive development: a neuropsychological approach." Maastricht : Maastricht : Neuropsych Publishers ; University Library, Universiteit Maastricht [host], 2007. http://arno.unimaas.nl/show.cgi?fid=8689.

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Wänström, Linda. "Intelligence and models for cognitive development /." Stockholm : Department of Statistics, Stockholm University, 2007. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:su:diva-7199.

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Ward, Paul. "The development of perceptual-cognitive expertise." Thesis, Liverpool John Moores University, 2002. http://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/4967/.

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Dawda, Darek. "The literacy hypothesis and cognitive development /." Burnaby B.C. : Simon Fraser University, 2006. http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/handle/1892/2635.

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Teufel, Christoph Rupert. "Mental attribution : its role in socio-cognitive development and adult social cognition." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.611347.

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Parker, Deborah A. (Deborah Ann). "Children's Cognitive and Moral Reasoning: Expressive Versus Receptive Cognitive Skills." Thesis, North Texas State University, 1986. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc331176/.

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Past research has shown that there are differences between children's ability to express verbally moral judgment or social cognitive principles (cognitive-expression) and their ability to understand and utilize these principles when making evaluations about others (cognitive-reception). This study investigated these differences.

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Molzhon, Andrea. "Exploring the Influence of Socioeconomic Status on the Executive Function and Theory of Mind Skills of Preschoolers." VCU Scholars Compass, 2016. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/4226.

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Executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) skills develop rapidly during the preschool years and have been found to directly and indirectly contribute to school readiness. Evidence indicates that EF may influence ToM development, though this relation may not be consistent across children from different backgrounds. Additionally, socioeconomic status (SES) has been shown to affect preschoolers’ EF, while the literature is mixed regarding the effects – if any – that SES may have on ToM development. Though the relation between EF and ToM appears robust across the literature, the possible effects of SES on this relation have yet to be fully explored. As children from low-SES homes are more likely to fall behind at the start of school, and this achievement gap is likely to widen through the school years, it is important to understand how the cognitive components that contribute to school readiness develop and are affected by SES so that we may work toward improving preschool education for children across all socioeconomic backgrounds. The primary purpose of the current study was to determine whether SES affected the relation between EF and ToM among urban preschool children (ages 3-5 years) from various SES backgrounds. In addition to examining the EF-ToM relation, relations among SES, general cognitive skills, EF, and ToM, as well as relations among age, EF, and ToM, were examined. Results from correlational and regression analyses indicated that SES was related to EF but not ToM, and that EF was not related to ToM after controlling for age. Inconsistent with the majority of previous findings, the results did not support the hypothesized link between EF and ToM. However, the findings from this study do add support to the large body of literature pertaining to the positive relation between SES and EF, and provide evidence that ToM may be relatively protected from the negative effects of low-SES among preschoolers. Results also support previous reports of large age-related changes in EF and ToM that occur during the preschool years. The implications for preschool development and education are discussed.

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Merryfield, Jessica L. "Let's play Designing spaces for cognitive development /." Cincinnati, Ohio : University of Cincinnati, 2006. http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/view.cgi?acc%5Fnum=ucin1148070735.

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Thesis (Master of Architecture)--University of Cincinnati, 2006.
Title from electronic thesis title page (viewedJuly 17, 2006). Includes abstract. Keywords: children's design, architecture, cognitive development. Includes bibliographical references.

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Ouyang, Sining, and 欧阳斯宁. "Effect of music on children's cognitive development." Thesis, The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong), 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10722/193786.

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Background Music as a part of our daily life, it can make people feel pleasure, peaceful, or exciting. Children as the future generation in our society are expected to have optimal development and growth. During childhood, cognitive development plays an important role in construction of thought processing ability and it is associated with physical development and nervous system development. As we know music is considered to be the efflorescence of human thought, this project aims to evaluate the effect of music listening and training on children’s cognitive development, as well as investigate effect of different types of music such as calm music, aggressive music, familiar music and unfamiliar music on cognitive development. The systematic review will identify and appraise the evidence of studies that related to our research question. Methods All relevant studies published from 1990 to 2013 were searched and identified when conducting an electronic literature search. There were 338 papers found through the database including Pubmed, SAGE and Google Scholar with a combination of specific keywords. After considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria, ten studies were found related to research questions and adopted for this systematic review. Results The ten studies were from four countries and included a total number of 8,836 subjects aged 4 to 12 years old. Randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies, longitudinal studies, cross-sectional study were used in this systematic review. The studies included short-term and long-term effect of music listening and training on children. Most of the studies assigned participants to one group that had exposure to music and another group that had no exposure to music. For music listening groups, their performance of cognitive test was better than the group without music listing. Calm and pleasant music was more positive than aggressive music. Familiar music also had more impact on children’s cognitive ability. For music training groups, the effect of music gave impact on children’s cognitive development positively. Children received music training had increased cognitive ability. Conclusions Overall, the effect of different music listening and music training had been evaluated. The impact of music will be more effective if music is enjoyed by the listener. However, due to the publications of articles were only in English, not all of the studies design of articles were randomized control trials and some studies had small sample size such as thirty to seventy in this systematic review, further research is needed.
published_or_final_version
Public Health
Master
Master of Public Health

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Strauss, Clara Yolanda. "Depression and the development of cognitive coping." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.364546.

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Combrink, Aneri. "Cognitive development in planning theory / A. Combrink." Thesis, North-West University, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10394/4564.

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This study reconsiders cognitive development in planning theory, in order to expose the underlying cognitive framework through which academics communicate in planning literature. A cognitive framework develops over time and through experience within the minds of theorists and readers of planning theory. This framework forms the basis for orientation and interpretation of planning literature by the reader. This is illustrated by describing the various perspectives within planning theory and the connotations they have with different levels of theorising. The different perspectives involve the nature thereof, the history and its political conviction, underpinned by ideology. The different levels of theorising involve a framework which descends from thinking through to implementation and consists of a philosophical–, meta–theoretical– and a technical (tools) level. The problem is that the concept of a developed cognitive framework is rarely discussed in a constructive manner in planning literature. This proves to be the cause of confusion for students and other readers whom have not yet developed their own cognitive framework. An incomplete framework causes misconceptions from existing literature for example: the purpose of Faludi's book Planning Theory (1973). A discussion of this framework by academics could explain unresolved debates such as the substance and procedural debate and the normative theory versus the positive theory debate. The application of this framework proves that the political conflict in planning theory literature such as the more rational perspectives versus the more socio–political perspectives could be more constructive. Therefore this study argues that a cognitive framework could be determined by the general perspectives in planning literature together with different levels of theorising, and should become a constructive part of planning theory (debate) and education. Furthermore this study argues that if all perspectives are allowed to develop fully (non–competitive and attaining all different levels of theorising), connotations could be made on a meta–theoretical level to provide a proper cross range description of planning and provide a proper basis for comparison and would lead to more relevant and constructive debate(s).
Thesis (M.Art. et Scien. (Town and Regional Planning))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

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Dunham, Lesley Ann. "Cognitive development in relation to science education." Thesis, University of Warwick, 1994. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/3701/.

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Various skills have been considered quintessential to the scientific method. The need for these skills was highlighted by Armstrong at the beginning of the century and continues to be re-iterated to the present day within the criteria of the National Curriculum. Pupils as scientists are expected to make accurate and meaningful observations; record results from experiments formulated to test hypotheses, controlling all the relevant variables except the one under investigation; identify patterns within the results and recognise anomalies; draw valid conclusions from the data collected and extrapolate from the data to predict further results. These criteria were included in the list of thirty-two teacher assessed skills in domains five and six of the Northern Examination Association, NEA, GCSE Biology Syllabus. This research project endeavoured to test the acquisition of these skills in a large sample of students drawn from a variety of schools in an effort to establish the relative difficulty of the individual skills. The corollation of performance of the skills with a range of factors, including IQ, the influence of gender, school type, and associated subjects they studied was explored. In particular the effect of an exposure to the Warwick Process Science Scheme was investigated to establish whether a transferable long term enhancement resulted. The main body of the research was undertaken on Year ten (4th Year) pupils, the sample being drawn from ten schools of varying types. The work was extended to include both younger and older age groups, to identify the progress made with age in skill acquisition and to investigate whether success in the skills is of predictive value for the final GCSE grades of future 'A'Level achievement. The results indicated a wide variability in degrees of difficulty of the individual skills and a wide range of performance by individual candidates. Success in the skills corollated very closely with IQ, so to eliminate this effect samples cross-matched for IQ were investigated to establish the effect of other variables. Only the study of the three separate sciences and tuition within a selective school proved to have a significant effect on the outcome. Only skill 30 devising three separate hypotheses to explain a complex set of results, had predictive value for GCSE and none were of value for predicting capital 'A'Level success.

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Mitchell, Ryan A. "Bisexual Identity Development| A Social Cognitive Process." Thesis, Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=1600585.

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This study explored how bisexual individuals used media and other frames of reference to understand their own sexuality. It also sought to understand how bisexual individuals felt about the representation in the media and if they had a preferred image in mind. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six individuals recruited from universities and LGBT-oriented groups and their answers were analyzed through social cognitive theory and sexual identity development models. The study found that, for the participants interviewed, media examples of bisexuality and bisexual individuals were not completely accepted and other representations were preferred. For this sample, an educational setting played an important role in acquiring the language used to describe their sexuality. Also, the participants mostly agreed that the media did not often portray bisexuality in ways that resonated with them.

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Tikhanoff, Vadim. "Development of cognitive capabilities in humanoid robots." Thesis, University of Plymouth, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/2807.

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Building intelligent systems with human level of competence is the ultimate grand challenge for science and technology in general, and especially for the computational intelligence community. Recent theories in autonomous cognitive systems have focused on the close integration (grounding) of communication with perception, categorisation and action. Cognitive systems are essential for integrated multi-platform systems that are capable of sensing and communicating. This thesis presents a cognitive system for a humanoid robot that integrates abilities such as object detection and recognition, which are merged with natural language understanding and refined motor controls. The work includes three studies; (1) the use of generic manipulation of objects using the NMFT algorithm, by successfully testing the extension of the NMFT to control robot behaviour; (2) a study of the development of a robotic simulator; (3) robotic simulation experiments showing that a humanoid robot is able to acquire complex behavioural, cognitive, and linguistic skills through individual and social learning. The robot is able to learn to handle and manipulate objects autonomously, to cooperate with human users, and to adapt its abilities to changes in internal and environmental conditions. The model and the experimental results reported in this thesis, emphasise the importance of embodied cognition, i.e. the humanoid robot's physical interaction between its body and the environment.

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Öhman, Mattias. "Essays on Cognitive Development and Medical Care." Doctoral thesis, Uppsala universitet, Nationalekonomiska institutionen, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-305627.

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This thesis consists of four self-contained papers. Essay I (with Linuz Aggeborn): Fluoridation of the drinking water is a public policy whose aim is to improve dental health. Although the evidence is clear that fluoride is good for dental health, concerns have been raised regarding potential negative effects on cognitive development. We study the effects of fluoride exposure through the drinking water in early life on cognitive and non-cognitive ability, education and labor market outcomes in a large-scale setting. We use a rich Swedish register dataset for the cohorts born 1985-1992, together with drinking water fluoride data. To estimate the effects, we exploit intra-municipality variation of fluoride, stemming from an exogenous variation in the bedrock. First, we investigate and confirm the long-established positive relationship between fluoride and dental health. Second, we find precisely estimated zero-effects on cognitive ability, non-cognitive ability and education for fluoride levels below 1.5 mg/l. Third, we find evidence that fluoride improves later labor market outcomes, which indicates that good dental health is a positive factor on the labor market. Essay II: I study the associations between cognitive and non-cognitive abilities and mortality using a population-wide dataset of almost 700,000 Swedish men born between 1950 and 1965. The abilities were measured at the Swedish military enlistment at age 18-20. In addition, I investigate if income and education are good proxies for the abilities. The results suggest that both cognitive and non-cognitive abilities are strongly associated with mortality, but that non-cognitive ability is a stronger predictor. The associations are only partly mediated through income and education. For middle and high income earners and individuals with a college education there are no associations with mortality. However, for low income earners and individuals without a college education, both abilities are strongly associated with mortality. The associations are mainly driven by the bottom of the distributions. Essay III (with Matz Dahlberg, Kevin Mani and Anders Wanhainen): We examine how health information affects individuals' well-being using a regression discontinuity design on data from a screening program for an asymptomatic disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA). The information provided to the individuals is guided by the measured aorta size and its relation to pre-determined levels. When comparing individuals that receive information that they are healthy with those that receive information that they are in the risk zone for AAA, we find no effects. However, when comparing those that receive information that they have a small AAA, and will be under increased surveillance, with those who receive information that they are in the risk zone, we find a weak positive effect on well-being. This indicates that the positive information about increased surveillance may outweigh the negative information about worse health. Essay IV: I estimate the effect of SSRI antidepressants on the risk of mortality for myocardial infarction (MI) patients using Propensity Score Matching on individual health variables such as pharmaceutical drug prescription, patient history and severity of the MI. The effect of antidepressants on mortality is a heavily debated topic. MI patients have an elevated risk of developing depression, and antidepressants are among the most common treatments for depression and anxiety. However, there are indications that some classes of antidepressants may have drug-induced cardiovascular effects and could be harmful for individuals with heart problems, but there is a lack of large-scale studies using credible identification strategies. My findings indicate no increased risk of two-year mortality for MI patients using SSRI. The results are stable for several specifications and robustness checks.

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MERRYFIELD, JESSICA L. "LET'S PLAY: DESIGNING SPACES FOR COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1148070735.

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Westermann, Gert. "Constructivist neural network models of cognitive development." Thesis, University of Edinburgh, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/22733.

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In this thesis I investigate the modelling of cognitive development with Constructivist neural networks. I argue that the constructivist nature of development, that is, the building of a cognitive system through active interactions with its environment, is an essential property of human development and should be considered in models of cognitive development. I evaluate this claim on the basis of evidence from cortical development, cognitive development, and learning theory. In an empirical evaluation of this claim, I then present a constructivist neural network model of the acquisition of the English past tense and of impaired inflectional processing in German agrammatic aphasics. The model displays a realistic course of acquisition, closely modelling the U-shaped learning curve and more detailed effects such as frequency and family effects. Further, the model develops double dissociations between regular and irregular verbs. I argue that the ability of the model to account for the human data is based on its constructivist nature, and this claim is backed by an analogous, but non-constructivist model that does not display many aspects of the human behaviour. Based on these results I develop a taxonomy for cognitive models that incorporates architectural and developmental aspects besides the traditional distinction between symbolic and subsymbolic processing. When the model is trained on the German participle and is then lesioned by removing connections, the breakdown in performance reflects the profiles of German aggrammatic aphasics. Irregular inflections are selectively impaired and are often overregularised. Further, frequency effects and the regularity-continuum effect that are observed in aphasic subjects can also be modelled. The model predicts that an aphasic profile with selectively impaired regular inflections would be evidence for a locally distinct processing of regular and irregular infections.

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FitzGibbon, Lily. "The development of cognitive flexibility in childhood." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2015. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/9335/.

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The experiments presented in this thesis explored the processes that contribute to cognitive flexibility between the ages of three and eleven years. A new paradigm, the Switching, Inhibition and Flexibility Task (SwIFT) has been used to test whether the paradigms that we use to study cognitive flexibility can lead to incidental, or unexpected performance costs. The roles of core executive demands and incidental task demands on preschool children’s cognitive flexibility performance were explored in the first section of this thesis. Perseveration, which is the most common pattern of failure for preschool children, was strongly associated with incidental demands of the most commonly used measure, and not associated with the core demands of switching between dimension- level rules. Further experiments went on to determine that preschool children’s performance in both cognitive flexibility and working memory tasks can be affected by the medium through which those tasks are presented (computer-based or object-based); and that cognitive flexibility can be affected by the wording of the cues used to prompt task switches. The role of set size in school-age children’s cognitive flexibility was also explored in this thesis. In a series of experiments, it was shown that tasks with a small set size lead to greater switch costs than tasks with a large set size, and that this was due to bottom- up priming processes which facilitate task repetition and impair task switching. Furthermore, there was evidence to support a shift from stimulus-specific to abstract levels of priming during the early school years. This suggests that there are changes in the mechanisms through which set size may affect performance across development. Throughout this thesis, new measures were used to transfer research questions between the pre-school, school age and adult age groups. This research is thus an important progression towards understanding how cognitive flexibility develops through the entire developmental period.

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Wilcox, Teresa Gaynelle. "Cognitive development in preterm and fullterm infants." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/186201.

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The purpose of this project was to investigate four markers of early cognitive development in preterm and fullterm infants with uncomplicated pre- and peri-natal medical histories. These included object memory, location memory, memory and manual search, and inhibitory control of reaching. In addition, the relation between behavioral organization at term and the development of these abilities was investigated. For all test sessions, the PT infants were tested at corrected age (age since expected due date) rather than chronological age (age since birth). The Assessment of Preterm Infant Behavior (APIB) was used to measure regulation of attention, orientation to visual stimuli, motor functioning, and modulatory abilities at 2 weeks corrected age. At 2.5, 4.5, and 6.5 months corrected age, each infant was tested on Visual Paired Comparison and Visual Search. At 8.5, 10.5, and 12.5 months of corrected age each infant was tested on A-not-B and Object Retrieval. Successful performance on VPC and VS is thought to depend on the functional development of the object vision and spatial vision systems, respectively. Successful performance on A-not-B and OR depends on the functional integrity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. FT infants evidenced better performance on all domains of functioning measured by the APIB. While the infants did not evidence object memory at any age tested, which was attributed to difficulty of task demands, they did evidence location memory at all ages tested. There was not a direct effect of PT birth on VPC or VS performance. However, there was an indirect effect of PT birth, mediated by APIB performance, on attention behaviors during both tasks. There was not a direct effect of PT birth on A-not-B or OR performance. However, there was an indirect effect of PT birth, mediated by APIB performance, on the development of OR abilities. These findings indicate that group differences in behavioral organization at 2 weeks of age differentially predict rates of development on some cognitive tasks. Finally, the overall pattern of results indicates that uncomplicated PT birth does not alter the functional development of the neural systems studied.

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Miser, Tracey Marie. "Attention, Memory, and Development of Inductive Generalization." The Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1460404591.

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Gudbjornsdottir, G. "Cognitive development, gender, class and education : A longitudinal study of Icelandic early and late cognitive developers." Thesis, University of Leeds, 1987. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.377067.

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Watson-Jones, Rachel. "The ritualistic child : imitation, affiliation, and the ritual stance in human development." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2013. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2b00ce6b-f281-4644-83fb-ef484701b5f6.

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Researchers have long argued that ritual plays a crucial role in marking social identities and binding individuals together in a system of shared actions and beliefs. The psychological processes underlying how and why ritual promotes group bonding and influences in- and out-group biases have not yet been fully elucidated. The research presented in this thesis was designed to examine the social and cognitive developmental underpinnings of conventional/ ritualistic behavior. Because learning cultural conventions is essential for participation in group behavior and for signaling group membership and commitment, I propose that conventional/ ritualistic learning is motivated by a drive to affiliate. Experiment 1 investigated the affiliative nature of ritualistic learning by examining the effects of third-party ostracism on imitation of an instrumental versus ritual action sequence and prosocial behavior. Individuals who do not participate in shared group conventions often face the threat of ostracism from the group. Given that attempting re-inclusion is an established response to ostracism, I predicted that the threat of ostracism increases affiliative motivations and thus will increase imitative fidelity, especially in the context of conventional learning. Experiment 2 examined the effects of first-person ostracism in the context of in- and out-groups on children’s imitation of a ritualistic action sequence and pro-social behavior. I predicted that the experience of ostracism by an in-group versus an out-group has important implications for the construal of social exclusion and affiliative behavior. I hypothesized that children would be motivated to re-affiliate by imitating the model and acting pro-socially towards the group, especially when ostracized by in-group members. Based on the findings of this research and insight from anthropology, and social and developmental psychology, I will present a picture of how children acquire the conventions of their group and how these conventions influence social group cognition.

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Hobbs, Kathryn Virginia. "Infants' and toddlers' reasoning about others: Connections to prosocial development and language." Thesis, Harvard University, 2014. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:13065030.

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Often overlooked in the study of theory of mind (ToM) development, the understanding of motivational states, such as goals and desires, is both an important capacity in its own right and also a likely precursor to more advanced social and cognitive skills. This dissertation explored infants' and toddlers' reasoning about agents' motivational states, linking those representations to the domains of language and prosocial development. Parts I and II of the dissertation asked about toddlers' abilities to use representations of others' motivational states to guide helping behaviors. Part I used a spontaneous helping paradigm with two goal objects, one previously liked and the other disliked. Three- but not 2-year-olds helped appropriately by giving an actor her desired object, reflecting prosocial concern for others' specific desires at age 3. Part II probed the understanding of goals and helping of 14- and 24-month-olds. After establishing that toddlers encode simple reaching actions as goal-directed, a series of 4 experiments using an object-giving paradigm investigated toddlers' abilities to use goal representations to guide helping. The results indicate that 24- but not 14-month-olds used representations of prior goals to inform their helping behaviors; 14-month-olds were capable of using only current goals to guide helping. Part III of the dissertation asked whether there is continuity in the developmental relationship between language and ToM by investigating links between toddlers' understanding of motivational states and their vocabulary size. Experiment 1 found no correlation between the vocabulary size of typically hearing toddlers and their performance on tasks measuring motivational state understanding. Experiment 2 compared the same motivational state understanding of typically hearing toddlers and deaf toddlers with smaller vocabularies, finding no differences in performance between groups. The results of these experiments indicate that the link between language and false belief that is present at age 4 does not extend to motivational state reasoning in the toddler years. Together the findings of this dissertation highlight important limits and boundary conditions on young children's reasoning about motivational states. Further research is needed into the developmental trajectory and mechanisms of theory of mind reasoning.
Psychology

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Plebanek, Daniel Joseph. "Paying Attention to Development: Understanding Developmental Differences in Selectivity." The Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1499425770379572.

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Skeat, Lizbeth Cara. "Cognitive Development in Student Leaders and Non-leaders." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/32555.

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This study examined cognitive development in student leaders and non-leaders. Participants included 60 students (30 student leaders and 30 non-leaders). Each group contained equal numbers of males and females. The Measure of Epistemological Reflection (MER) (Baxter Magolda & Porterfield, 1985) was administered to participants to measure certain indicators of cognitive development. Cognitive development refers to the increase in cognitive complexity that may occur in students during their college years and includes students' ways of making meaning from what they learn. Students' ways of making meaning refers to changes in students' attitudes towards the nature of knowledge and truth. This development can be measured by examining how students learn, make decisions, relate to their teachers and peers, and perceive knowledge. Analysis of these data revealed that leaders had significantly higher scores than did non-leaders. No gender differences were found, however, and no differences were found when female leaders were compared to female non-leaders or male leaders were compared to male non-leaders. This research has implications for several groups. First, this study might be useful to student affairs professionals who work with clubs and organizations. The results provided staff with baseline data about leaders' and non-leaders' cognitive reasoning skills. Such information may enable staff to develop purposeful interventions to promote growth in cognitive reasoning skills among student leaders. The results of this study may also be useful for other student affairs professionals who try to enhance their students' cognitive development levels. For example, residential life professionals may find the results of this study interesting. The results provided them with information about cognitive development in student leaders and non-leaders, which they may then compare with their own students' levels of cognitive development. Current students may also be interested in the cognitive reasoning levels of student leaders and non-leaders. They may use these findings to understand their own cognitive development and formulate goals for this development.
Master of Arts

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Powell, Lindsey Jane. "Infants' Understanding of Social Affiliation and Behavioral Conformity." Thesis, Harvard University, 2012. http://dissertations.umi.com/gsas.harvard:10626.

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This dissertation engages in two major hypotheses regarding infants' naïve theory of social relationships. First, it proposes that infants may apply a domain-specific understanding to represent and reason about social groups defined by affiliation amongst their members. Second, it argues that infants may have an understanding of the causal role that behavioral conformity plays in promoting affiliation, and that this understanding may help to determine how infants reason about the coalitional social groups referred to in the first hypothesis. Experiments across three chapters address different aspects of these hypotheses. The experiments in Chapter 2 ask whether infants selectively use coalitional groups to make certain sorts of behavioral inferences, in contrast to the inferences they draw regarding other animate and inanimate categories. The experiments in Chapter 3 investigate the role of similarity of appearance in infants' representations of coalitional groups. Finally, the experiments in Chapter 4 look at how infants evaluate behavioral conformity and what they think it indicates about the attitudes of conformers and their targets. Chapter 5 synthesizes this work and discusses how it might apply to the study of imitation in both developmental and comparative fields.
Psychology

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Svirko, Elena. "Individual differences in complex grammar acquisition : causes and consequences." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b0b039d2-5025-4f48-8aa5-546b6bd29090.

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A longitudinal study lasting 3.5 years was conducted to investigate complex grammar development, focusing on acquisition of the passive and type 3 conditionals, and its relationship with a number of domain-general, domain-specific and environmental factors. 128 children (M = 5 years 10 months) were tested at the beginning and towards the end of each school year starting from Year 1. The administered measures included established tests of fluid intelligence, short-term and working memory, seriation, grammar, vocabulary, literacy and arithmetic, plus newly-developed tests of passive and conditional sentence acquisition, and arithmetic word problem solving. It was demonstrated that grammar acquisition is not complete even when children start Year 4 of primary school (M = 8 years 7 months), when the current study was completed. At that time, 32% of children have not acquired type 3 conditionals and 89% showed no understanding of centre-embedded sentences. However, only 3% showed no passive sentence acquisition. Fluid intelligence, verbal STM and WM, ability to seriate, vocabulary and parental education level were all found to contribute to individual differences in complex grammar acquisition, independently of age differences and, where relevant, independently of non-verbal ability. There were differences between the passives and the conditionals in their relationship to these variables. Complex grammar development was found to be a significant predictor of reading comprehension, spelling and arithmetic performance, independently of age, non-verbal ability, verbal STM and WM. The findings demonstrate the inter-relatedness of higher cognitive functions, particularly domain-general with domain-specific ones. Modularity in its strictest sense (informational encapsulation, functional isolation) is not present in normally developing brains. Educational applications of the results are discussed.

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Nightingale, Zoe C. "Cognitive rehearsal, cognitive bias and the development of fear in high trait-anxious children." Thesis, University of Sussex, 2011. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/6944/.

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Previous research has shown that high trait-anxious children, relative to low trait-anxious children, are at an increased risk of developing fear due to threatening information (Field, 2006b; Field and Price-Evans, 2009). However, the mechanism that underlies this relationship remains unknown. Cognitive models of vulnerability to anxiety propose that biases in the processing of threat-relevant material play a part in the aetiology and maintenance of anxiety disorders (Beck and Clark, 1997; Eysenck, 1992) and as such could potentially explain the relationship between trait-anxiety and fear development in the face of ambiguous information in children. For example, high-anxious children tend to interpret ambiguous information in a more negative manner (interpretation bias) and remember ambiguous information as being more threatening than it was originally (memory bias) (see Hadwin and Field, 2010, for a review). Additionally, high-anxious children have been found to engage in negative cognitive rehearsal (Comer, Kendall, Franklin, Hudson, and Pimental, 2004). The experiments in this thesis investigated whether these cognitive biases underlie the relationship between trait anxiety and fear development in non-clinical children. In a series of three experiments, children (aged 8-11 years) were presented with some ambiguous information regarding two novel animals (the quoll and the cuscus) and before completing a cognitive rehearsal task were told that they would soon be asked to approach the animals. There were several findings: 1) High trait-anxious children were not significantly more likely than low trait-anxious children to display any of the cognitive biases tested (i.e., interpretation bias, memory bias or cognitive rehearsal). However, tentative evidence suggested that interpretation bias exacerbated the relationship between trait anxiety and fear; 2) Whether children cognitively rehearsed the ambiguous information or not had no significant impact on their fear for the animals, nor did the valence of their thoughts; 3) Children who interpreted the ambiguous information more negatively were more likely to become fearful of the animals and were also more likely to remember more negatively-biased and less positively-biased pieces of ambiguous information; 4) It was the lack of positively-biased memories not the increased number of negatively-biased memories that led children who interpreted the information more negatively to become more fearful of the animals as a result. The findings are discussed with reference to their implications for the theory and prevention of childhood fear: that positive interpretation and memory bias training may act to decrease or even help to prevent fear development in children.

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Sanghvi, Hari Galen. "Cognitive interference in social interaction : development and validation of the social interference questionnaire /." Thesis, Connect to this title online; UW restricted, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1773/9110.

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Farah, Hanna Ibrahim. "Applying cognitive patterns to support software tool development." Thesis, University of Ottawa (Canada), 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10393/27354.

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This research was motivated by the development of a set of cognitive patterns [3], and the hypothesis that those patterns could lead to innovative and useful features in software development environments. Cognitive patterns are descriptions of ways people think and act when exploring or explaining software. In this research we focused on the Temporal Details cognitive patterns, which describe the dynamics of the changes in someone's mental model. The main objective of this research, therefore, is to determine to what extent software engineering tool features could be derived from the cognitive patterns, specifically belonging to the Temporal Details hierarchy. As the first step in our research, we analysed current tool support for cognitive patterns. The second step was to create and evaluate a list of potential new features based on the cognitive patterns. Thirdly, we developed a prototype for our most promising feature entitled Temporal Model Explorer (TME). This prototype helps people understand and manipulate the history of a software model. Users can use a slider to browse the history of the construction of a UML diagram from its point of creation to its current state. Navigation can be performed at different levels of granularity. Design rationale can be included at any point in the history. The final step was to evaluate the TME prototype with twelve participants from different backgrounds. The participants found the tool useful, and agreed that they would use it if it was available in their work environment.

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Martin, Michelle M. "The development of cognitive inhibition in bilingual children." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1999. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp03/MQ56190.pdf.

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Thomas, Charles Nolan. "The relationships between cognitive deficits and spiritual development." Lynchburg, Va. : Liberty University, 2008. http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu.

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Östergren, Rickard. "Mathematical Learning Disability : Cognitive Conditions, Development and Predictions." Doctoral thesis, Linköpings universitet, Psykologi, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-96799.

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The purpose of the present thesis was to test and contrast hypotheses about the cognitive conditions that support the development of mathematical learning disability (MLD). Following hypotheses were tested in the thesis: a) domain general deficit, the deficit is primarily located in the domain general systems such as the working memory, b) number sense deficit, the deficit is located in the innate approximate number system (ANS), c) numerosity coding deficit, the deficit is located to a exact number representation system, d) access deficit, the deficit is in the mapping between symbols and the innate number representational system (e.g., ANS), e) multiple deficit hypothesis states that MLD could be related to more than one deficit. Three studies examined the connection between cognitive abilities and arithmetic. Study one and three compared different groups of children with or without MLD (or risk of MLD). Study two investigated the connection between early number knowledge, verbal working memory and the development of arithmetic ability. The results favoring the multiple deficit hypothesis, more specifically the result indicate that number sense deficit together with working memory functions constitutes risk-factors to the development of MLD in children. A simple developmental model that is based on von Asters and Shalev´s (2007) model and the present results is suggested, in order to understand the development of MLD in children.
Avhandlingens syfte var att testa och kontrastera hypoteser om vilka kognitiva förutsättningar som är centrala för utvecklandet av matematiska inlärningssvårigheter (MLD) hos barn. De hypoteser som prövas i avhandlingen är följande: a) den domängenerella hypotesen, detta innebär att den förmodade störningen/nedsättningen finns primärt i barnets generella förmågor, främst då i arbetsminnes funktioner. b) en nedsättning i den medfödda approximativa antalsuppfattningen. c) nedsättning i den exakta antalskodningen. d) nedsättning gällande kopplingen mellan den kulturellt betingande symboliska nivå (räkneord och siffror) samt den medfödda antalsuppfattningen (eller antalskodningen). e) slutligen prövas även hypotesen att MLD kan härröras från flera nedsättningar i dessa förmågor. I tre studier undersöktes kopplingen mellan kognitiva förmågor och aritmetik. i studie1 och 3 jämfördes grupper av barn med MLD (eller risk för MLD) med grupper av barn som inte hade MLD i studie 2 undersöktes kopplingen mellan förmågorna verbalt arbetsminne och tidig sifferkunskap samt tidig aritmetiskförmåga. Sammantaget indikerar resultaten från denna avhandling att det kan vara både multipla och enstaka kognitiva förmågor, primärt i den approximativa antalsuppfattningen samt i arbetsminnesfunktioner, som kan fungera som riskförutsättningar för utvecklande av MLD hos barn. Dock måste dessa förmågor samspela med andra faktorer som kan fungera kompensatoriskt eller riskhöjande för utvecklandet av MLD. En förenklad utvecklingsmodell med utgångspunkten i resultaten från studierna samt von Asters och Shalevs (2007) modell föreslås. Syftet med modellen är att den ska kunna användas som teoretiskt ramverk för att förstå utvecklingen av MLD hos barn.

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Vadehra, Pooja. "Co-resident grandparents and children's early cognitive development." Thesis, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3722563.

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VADEHRA, POOJA, Ph.D. Co-resident Grandparents and Children?s Early Cognitive Development. (2015). Directed by Dr. Danielle Crosby. 112 pp. Cross-cultural research on parent?maintained multigenerational families with co-resident grandparents has shown largely positive outcomes for children, but few studies have explored the potential impact of this type of household structure on children in the American context. The goals of the current study were to investigate the association between grandparent co-residency in stable two-parent families and children?s early cognitive development (at ages 9 months and 2 years), and to examine whether grandparents? provision of child care moderated this association. A secondary set of questions asked whether the pattern of associations under study varied by children?s ethnoracial background (White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Other). Data for this study were drawn from the first two waves of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a unique, prospective study of development for a nationally representative sample of children born in the U.S. in 2001. Analyses focused on the 6,950 children who lived in stable two-parent families during their first two years of life. Descriptive results show that 11.3% of infants living in stable two-parent families in this national sample had at least one grandparent living with them during their first two years of life. A series of multivariate logistic regressions indicated that grandparent co-residency was a more likely occurrence for children with younger mothers, children in families below the poverty threshold and those receiving federal benefits, children in families with higher incomes (once poverty was accounted for), first born children and Asian children. Interesting differences emerged in the pattern of correlates of grandparent co-residency across ethnoracial groups. Poverty and federal assistance were the strongest predictors of co-residency for White, Hispanic, and ?Other? families; whereas higher income was associated with co-residency for Black and Asian families. Hypotheses about the association between grandparent co-residency and children?s early cognitive development were not supported (for the full sample or any of the ethnoracial groups); however, supplementary analyses provided suggestive evidence of higher test scores at 9 months for children with co-resident grandmothers, and higher test scores at age 2 for children with co-resident grandfathers. I found no evidence that grandparent provision of child care moderated this association. Implications for future research and recommendations are further discussed.

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Sorrentino, Christina M. 1967. "Individuation, identity and proper names in cognitive development." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/9674.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, 1999.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-199).
The ability to individuate entities (i.e. conceptualize one entity as distinct from two) and trace their identity (i.e. judge that an entity is the same one as an entity encountered before) is a fundamental component of the human mind and is critical to proper name reference (i.e. a proper name, like lvfax, refers to a unique individual, namely Max). Philosophers have proposed that sortals-concepts which refer to kinds of individuals-support these abilities (Gupta, 1980; Hirsch, 1982; Macnamara, 1986; Wiggins, 1967, 1980). However, while adults may well have sortal concepts and learn proper names for individuals, it is an open question whether children do so also. Proponents of the Continuity hypothesis (e.g. Macnamara, 1982; Pinker, 1984) argue that children and adults have fundamentally the same conceptual resources, whereas proponents of the Discontinuity hypothesis (e.g. Piaget, 1954; Quine, 1960, 1969) argue that child.en and adults have qualitatively different conceptual systems. In this thesis, evidence is reviewed that very young infants have at least one sortal, physical object, which suggests that infants have the conceptual structure needed to support representations of kinds and individuals. Experiments probing infant understanding of the concept, person, suggest that infants have the ability to reason about the action and appearance of others, but data presented in the thesis falls short of providing conclusive evidence that infants under a year are able to individuate people. Evidence is presented that by age three, children represent unique individuals and interpret proper names in an adult like manner as referring to unique individuals. This rules out a discontinuity alternative, namely that preschoolers represent proper names as referring to highly similar objects or to restricted subkinds. Evidence is also presented that children as young as two years are like adults in being willing to accept a range of individuals as nameable if given information which highlights the named objects' importance, such as the attribution of mental states to the object. Together these findings provide support for the continuity hypothesis and suggest a number of avenues of research into children's understanding of kinds, individuals, and their names.
by Christina M. Sorrentino.
Ph.D.

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Lamont, Alexandra Mary. "The development of cognitive representations of musical pitch." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.624265.

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Hong, Namkyung. "Language-specificity and young preschoolers' social-cognitive development." Thesis, Lancaster University, 2017. http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/85189/.

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This thesis investigated the role of linguistic access in reference to mental states in children’s social understanding. The importance of access to, or an understanding of, mentalistic language has been stressed regarding the development of children’s social understanding (e.g., Astington & Baird, 2005). It was predicted that the exposure to the mental-state terms using specific grammatically embedded forms specifying certainty and/or the origins of information would enhance Korean children’s social understanding. There has been a vast body of research, showing the predictive role of executive function on the development of social understanding, in particular false-belief understanding (e.g., Carlson & Moses, 2001; Sabbagh, Xu, Carlson, Moses, & Lee, 2006). However, research on Korean children did not support the view on the general development between the two cognitive skills (e.g., Oh & Lewis; 2008). Thus, the current study explored the relationships between executive function and false belief understanding in response to the debate. Executive function, or higher-level self control, is necessary to fulfil goal-directed action inhibiting irrelevant alternatives (Welsh & Pennington, 1988). Children learning from adults, however, trust information selectively (Koenig & Sabbagh, 2013). As children are required to suppress distracting information for selective trust, it was expected that higher skills in executive function may predict performance on selective trust. Thus, the role of executive function on this social understanding was also examined (in Experiment 1 and 2 for false belief and 5 for selective trust). In Experiments 1 and 2 (N = 175) when a protagonist in a false-belief task expressed either his uncertainty (i.e., -keyss (-ul keya) = may) or certainty (i.e., -ci = really), the linguistic markers influenced 3- and 4-year-olds’ apparent grasp of false beliefs. The different levels of certainty (i.e., -hata = do or –ya hata = must do) were applied to the executive function measures. However, the effects of different linguistic markers on executive skills were not observed. Experiment 3 (N = 144) moved the focus from false-belief understanding to selective trust with the application of differential evidentiality in correct and incorrect speakers. Four types of tasks, presented within a 2 (certainty vs. uncertainty) x 2 (accuracy vs. inaccuracy) design, were administered (N = 36 for each task) to three age groups (3.6-4.5 years, 4.6-5.5 years and 5.6-6.5 years). In order to indicate direct access to information, -te (I saw) was used while –napo (It seems) was used for indirect information. The findings from the four tasks showed a crucial effect of accuracy over certainty in selective trust. Following on from the results of Experiment 3, Experiments 4 and 5 compared the children’s performance in epistemic trust experiments in which linguistic access to the protagonists’ mental states was specified using either two evidential markers (i.e., -te vs. – napo) identifying both certainty and the origins of the protagonist’s knowledge, or specific verb terms (i.e., know vs. think) that expressed certainty. In Experiment 4 (N = 59), the findings revealed different developmental patterns according to the use of the two types of linguistic references (evidential markers vs. explicit verb terms): sensitivity to speakers’ epistemic states using mental-verb terms was in evidence at the age four and by evidentiality around the age six. The final experiment of this work employed a battery of executive function measures along with two selective trust tests, using the same contrasting means of identifying the protagonists’ certainty and knowledge (evidential markers vs. different linguistic terms: N = 84). The findings replicated the different developmental patterns of selective trust found in Experiment 4. There were different associations between executive function and questions of two of the three levels of the standard selective trust measure. Verbal working memory predicted the children’s performance in judging who is correct when the test question used included evidential markers. Visual working memory did the same job when verbal mental-state terms were used. Finally inhibitory control predicted selective learning when verbal terms were used. Taken together, the findings suggest that (a) a grasp of certainty appears earlier than an understanding of evidentiality; (b) the grammaticalized forms of certainty and evidentiality are more likely to influence children’s linguistic access to mental states than more explicit mental-verb terms (positively in false belief and negatively in epistemic trust). These lead to the conclusions that: (c) a mastery of semantics and syntactic forms is needed in developing social-cognitive skills; (d) specific language markers identifying the sources of a protagonist’s knowledge may reduce demands of executive function in processing another’s epistemic states.

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Graham, James T. "Development of Functional Requirements for Cognitive Motivated Machines." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1455711952.

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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Cognitive development'

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