RESUMO
In adults, the motor plans for object-directed grasping movements reflects the anticipated requirements of intended future object manipulations. This prospective mode of planning has been termed second-order planning. Surprisingly, second-order planning is thought to be fully developed only by 10â¯years of age, when children master seemingly more complex motor skills. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that already 5- and 6-year-old children consistently use second-order planning but that this ability does not become apparent in tasks that are traditionally used to probe it. We asked 5- and 6-year-olds and adults to grasp and rotate a circular dial in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. Although children's grasp selections were less consistent on an intra- and inter-individual level than adults' grasp selections, all children adjusted their grasps to the upcoming dial rotations. By contrast, in an also administered bar rotation task, only a subset of children adjusted their grasps to different bar rotations, thereby replicating previous results. The results indicate that 5- and 6-year-olds consistently use second-order planning in a dial rotation task, although this ability does not become apparent in bar rotation tasks.
Assuntos
Desenvolvimento Infantil/fisiologia , Força da Mão/fisiologia , Movimento/fisiologia , Rotação , Adulto , Envelhecimento/psicologia , Criança , Pré-Escolar , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Estudos Prospectivos , Adulto JovemRESUMO
In dual-task settings, one can find influences from Task 2 processing even on Task 1 performance, an effect referred to as the backward crosstalk effect (BCE). The size of the BCE has been taken as an index of how well Task 1 processing can be shielded against concurrently ongoing Task 2 processes. In the current study, we compared the size of the BCE between adults and a group of 5- and 6-year-old children. First, the BCE turned out to be larger in children than in adults. Second, both groups exhibited a comparable adjustment of behavior in response to just experienced conflict; in both groups, the BCE was smaller following conflict trials than following no-conflict trials. Third, a diffusion model analysis suggests that the source for the BCE is different in adults than in children. In particular, not parallel Task 2 response activation appears to be the source of the BCE in children. Rather, non-decisional processes appear to be responsible for the BCE in this age group. Thus, this study shows that (a) 5- and 6-year-old children can perform dual-tasks, but (b) they show slightly larger signs of between-task crosstalk, and (c) the exact reasons for this appear to be different from those responsible in adults.