Multilingualism is associated with small task-specific advantages in cognitive performance of older adults.

The protective effects of multiple language knowledge on the maintenance of cognitive functions in older adults have been discussed controversially, among others, because of methodological inconsistencies between studies. In a sample of N = 528 German monolinguals and multilinguals (speaking two or more languages) older than 60 years, this study examined (1) whether speaking multiple languages is positively related to performance on tasks of interference suppression, working memory, concept shifting, and phonemic and semantic fluency, and (2) whether language proficiency and age of second language acquisition (AoA) are associated with cognitive performance of multilinguals. Controlling for education and daily activity, we found small cognitive benefits of speaking multiple languages on interference suppression, working memory, and phonemic fluency, but not on concept shifting and semantic fluency. Furthermore, no substantive correlations were found between language proficiency or AoA and cognitive performance. In conclusion, multilingualism appears to have small incremental effects on cognitive performance beyond education and daily activity in older age that are task-specific and widely independent of proficiency and AoA.

The differential effects of a governmental debunking campaign concerning COVID-19 vaccination misinformation.

BACKGROUND: Throughout the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic debunking misinformation has been one of the most employed strategies used to address vaccine hesitancy. We investigated whether - and for whom - debunking is effective or even counterproductive in decreasing misinformation belief and vaccination hesitancy. METHOD: We conducted a randomized controlled trial (N = 588) utilizing a real-world debunking campaign from the German Ministry of Health. We considered the condition (debunking vs. control) as between-subjects factor, assessed misinformation belief (pretest vs. posttest) as a repeated-measures factor and vaccination intention as a dependent variable. Preregistered subgroup analyses were conducted for different levels of a priori misinformation belief and general vaccination confidence. RESULTS: The analyses revealed differential effects on misinformation belief and vaccination intention in participants with low, medium, and high a priori belief: A debunking effect on misinformation belief (dRM = -0.80) was only found in participants with a medium a priori belief and did not extend to these participants' vaccination intentions. Among participants with a high a priori misinformation belief, explorative analysis revealed a small unintended backfiring effect on vaccination intentions (ηp2 = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that debunking is an effective communication strategy to address moderate levels of misinformation beliefs, but it does not constitute a one-fits-all strategy to reduce vaccination hesitancy among the general public. Although countering misinformation should certainly be an integral part of public health communication, additional initiatives, which address individual concerns with targeted and authentic communication, should be taken to enhance the impact on hesitant populations and avoid backfiring effects.

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Risk Perception and Use of Local Public Transport During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

In light of the climate crisis, the transport sector needs to be urgently transformed and the number of users of local public transport needs to be increased. However, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic severely affected public transport with passenger numbers declining up to 80% in Germany. In addition to a general decrease in mobility during lockdowns, we can observe a shift in decision-making in regards to modes of transportation, with public transport losing out. We argue that this change in behavior can be explained by the fact that people tend to overestimate the risk of COVID-19 transmission in public transport. In order to understand risk perception in users and non-users of public transport during the pandemic, a representative survey (N = 918) in a German major city was conducted at the peak of the third wave of the pandemic in April 2021. We identified four main target groups of public transport use during the pandemic: Loyal users (n = 193), reducers (n = 175), pandemic-dropouts (n = 331) and non-users (n = 219). We found reducers (r = 0.12), pandemic-dropouts (r = 0.32) and non-users (r = 0.22) to perceive an increased perception of infection risk for public transport as compared loyal users. This increased risk perception was specific to public transport - it did not generalize to other day-to-day situations, such as going to the grocery store or visiting a hairdresser. This finding can be taken as an indication that risk perception for an infection plays a crucial role in stepping back from public transport use during the pandemic. In addition, however, there were other differences in terms of needs and concerns between the different target groups during the pandemic. Based on our findings, we discuss which tools and interventions might convince these different groups to hop-(back)-on public transport. Our study highlights how risk perception will play an important role in attracting new and former passengers and is the basis for the interventions and developments that will build a pandemic-resistant public transport in the future.

Symbolic distancing in sharing situations restrains children's economic behavior and potentially also their inequity aversion.

We examined whether representing a resource non-symbolically (i.e., as stickers) or symbolically (i.e., as tokens that could be exchanged for stickers) affected kindergartner's decisions in an Ultimatum/Inequity Game (N = 93). The game involved distribution offers, made by a fictitious child, that were either fair (i.e., same quantity for each child, i.e., 3:3) or disadvantageously unfair (i.e., less for the target child than for the fictitious child, i.e., 2:4 or 1:5). Children had to decide whether to accept or reject the offers. In the latter case, none of the children would get anything of the resource. Children rejected unfair offers more frequently than fair offers, and they rejected the offers involving the symbolic resource more frequently than offers involving the non-symbolic resource, which applied to a similar degree to fair and unfair offers. However, exploratory follow-up analyses of children's reactions to unfair offers revealed that children rejected the more unfair offer (i.e., 1:5) more frequently than the less unfair offer (i.e., 2:4) when the resource was represented non-symbolically instead of symbolically. The results suggest that the symbolic representation of a resource evokes economically less rational behavior in children and diminished their potential gain. Moreover, symbolic representations might level out children's differentiation of differently unfair offers. These findings are discussed in light of the subjective value approach and the Construal Level Theory.

Access to the learning material enhances learning by means of generating questions: Comparing open- and closed-book conditions.

BACKGROUND: Generating questions by learners might be a potent learning technique but previous research yielded several shortcomings and underlying mechanisms are not well understood. METHODS: Students (N = 231) first read an expository text including bold keywords and then generated questions and answers referring to these keywords in three conditions: (1) open-book (i.e., text accessible), (2) closed-book (i.e., text inaccessible), and (3) cued closed-book (i.e., only keywords provided). RESULTS: In a test after one week, students in the open-book and in the cued closed-book conditions performed better than students in the restudying condition. The number of generated questions and answers was largest in the open-book condition, smaller in the cued closed-book condition and smallest in the closed-book condition and predicted final test performance. CONCLUSIONS: Generating questions and answers is an effective tool to boost retention in university learning when (at least part of) the learning material remains accessible.

No Robust Effect of Distributed Practice on the Short- and Long-Term Retention of Mathematical Procedures.

We investigated the effect of distributed practice and more specifically the "lag effect" concerning the retention of mathematical procedures. The lag effect implies that longer retention intervals benefit from longer inter-study intervals (ISIs). University students (N = 235) first learned how to solve permutation tasks and then practiced this procedure with an ISI of zero (i.e., massed), one, or 11 days. The final test took place after one or five weeks. All conditions were manipulated between-subjects. Contrary to our expectations, the analyses revealed no effect of distributed practice and therewith also no lag effect, even though the sample size was sufficiently large. The only significant effect was that test performance was poorer after 5 weeks than after 1 week. In view of the present results and those of other studies, we assume that distributed practice works differently for declarative and procedural knowledge, with less robust of even absent effects when procedural skills are practiced with ISIs compared to massed practice.

Reading a short story changes children's sustainable behavior in a resource dilemma.

Fostering sustainable behavior in children and adolescents should be a central aim of today's education. Even though the interplay of factors affecting sustainable behavior is complex, simple interventions can be effective too. In the current study, 10-year-olds (N = 132) were read a short story about two foresters who collectively used a forest to gain timber, facing a resource dilemma that involved striving for maximizing their individual profit while sustaining the forest. In the story, the foresters solved the dilemma in favor of the resource, thereby serving as positive role models. Children in the control condition were read a short informative story on urban gardening that did not include a dilemma or any moral cues. Before and after the intervention, children played a fishing conflict game to assess their sustainable behavior. Children who were presented with the positive role models played the game after the intervention more sustainably than before the intervention. Children in the control condition, in contrast, played it even less sustainably after the intervention. The results suggest that a short intervention might affect children's sustainable behavior.

Distributed practice in mathematics: Recommendable especially for students on a medium performance level?

In this study, the effect of distributed practice on the mathematical performance of 7th graders was investigated (N == 81). After a stochastics lesson, one group of students worked three sets of exercises massed on one day, while the other group of students worked the same exercises distributed over three days. Bayesian analyses of the performance two weeks after the last practice revealed no evidence for an effect of practice condition. However, in a test after six weeks, strong evidence for a positive effect of distributed practice was revealed. Exploratory analyses indicated that especially students in the medium performance range benefitted from distributed practice. The results are discussed regarding the question under which circumstances distributed practice proves a useful strategy for mathematical learning.

Factors that affect primary school children's sustainable behavior in a resource dilemma.

Acting ecologically sustainably and not exhausting natural resources is becoming more and more important. Sustainable behavior can be investigated within the conceptual frame of resource dilemmas, in which users share a common, slowly regenerating resource. A conflict emerges between maximizing one's own profit and maintaining the resource for all users. Although many studies have investigated adults' behavior in resource dilemmas, barely anything is known about how children deal with such situations and which factors affect their behavior. Due to their still developing cognitive and social skills as well as their self-control, they might act differently than adults. In the current study, 114 children aged 6 to 11 years played a fishing conflict game. We manipulated (a) whether children played alone or in groups, (b) whether withdrawal was limited or not, and (c) whether children were allowed to communicate within the groups or not. In addition, children's individual characteristics that were expected to be related to their sustainable behavior were assessed (i.e., delay of gratification, fairness concept, relatedness to nature, math grade, and age). Children's success in maintaining the resource strongly depended on the game context. Similar to adults, children acted more ecologically sustainably when they played alone, when the withdrawal was limited, and when communication was allowed. In addition, older children acted more sustainably than younger children. The results are discussed in the light of findings with adults and with regard to potential interventions that aim at enhancing children's sustainable behavior.

Distributed Practice: Rarely Realized in Self-Regulated Mathematical Learning.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect and use of distributed practice in the context of self-regulated mathematical learning in high school. With distributed practice, a fixed learning duration is spread over several sessions, whereas with massed practice, the same time is spent learning in one session. Distributed practice has been proven to be an effective tool for improving long-term retention of verbal material and simple procedural knowledge in mathematics, at least when the practice schedule is externally guided. In the present study, distributed practice was investigated in a context that required a higher degree of self-regulation. In total, 158 secondary school students were invited to participate. After motivational and cognitive characteristics of the students were assessed, the students were introduced to basic statistics, a topic of their regular curriculum. At the end of the introduction, the students could sign up for the study to further practice this content. Eighty-seven students did so and were randomly assigned either to the distributed or to the massed practice condition. In the distributed practice condition, they received three practice sets on three different days. In the massed practice condition, they received the same three sets, but all on one day. All exercises were worked in the context of self-regulated learning at home. Performance was tested 2 weeks after the last practice set. Only 44 students finished the study, which hampered the analysis of the effect of distributed practice. The characteristics of the students who completed the exercises were analyzed exploratory: The proportion of students who finished all exercises was significantly higher in the massed than in the distributed practice condition. Within the distributed practice condition, a significantly larger proportion of female students completed the exercises compared to male students. Additionally, among these female students, a larger proportion showed lower concentration difficulty. No such differential effects were revealed in the massed practice condition. Our results suggest that the use of distributed practice in the context of self-regulated learning might depend on learner characteristics. Accordingly, distributed practice might obtain more reliable effects in more externally guided learning contexts.

Mental rotation and the human body: Children's inflexible use of embodiment mirrors that of adults.

Adults' mental rotation performance with body-like stimuli is enhanced if these stimuli are anatomically compatible with a human body, but decreased by anatomically incompatible stimuli. In this study, we investigated these effects for kindergartners and first-graders: When asked to mentally rotate cube configurations attached with human body parts in an anatomically compatible way, allowing for the projection of a human body, children performed better than with pure cube combinations. By contrast, when body parts were attached in an anatomically incompatible way, disallowing the projection of a human body, children performed worse than with pure combinations. This experiment is of specific interest against the background of two different theoretical approaches concerning imagery and the motor system in development: One approach assumes an increasing integration of motor processes and imagery over time that enables older children and adults to requisition motor resources for imagery processes, while the other postulates that imagery stems from early sensorimotor processes in the first place, and is disentangled from it over time. The finding that children of the two age groups tested show exactly the same effects as adults when mentally rotating anatomically compatible and incompatible stimuli is interpreted in favour of the latter approach. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? In mental rotation, adults perform better when rotating anatomically possible stimuli as compared to rotating standard cube combinations. Performance is worse when rotating anatomically impossible stimuli. What does this study add? The present study shows that children's mental transformations mirror those of adults in these respects. In case of the anatomically impossible stimuli, this highlights an inflexible use of embodiment in both age groups. This is in line with the Piagetian assumption of imagery being based on sensorimotor processes.

Relationships between Motor and Executive Functions and the Effect of an Acute Coordinative Intervention on Executive Functions in Kindergartners.

There is growing evidence indicating positive, causal effects of acute physical activity on cognitive performance of school children, adolescents, and adults. However, only a few studies examined these effects in kindergartners, even though correlational studies suggest moderate relationships between motor and cognitive functions in this age group. One aim of the present study was to examine the correlational relationships between motor and executive functions among 5- to 6-year-olds. Another aim was to test whether an acute coordinative intervention, which was adapted to the individual motor functions of the children, causally affected different executive functions (i.e., motor inhibition, cognitive inhibition, and shifting). Kindergartners (N = 102) were randomly assigned either to a coordinative intervention (20 min) or to a control condition (20 min). The coordination group performed five bimanual exercises (e.g., throwing/kicking balls onto targets with the right and left hand/foot), whereas the control group took part in five simple activities that hardly involved coordination skills (e.g., stamping). Children's motor functions were assessed with the Movement Assessment Battery for Children 2 (Petermann, 2009) in a pre-test (T1), 1 week before the intervention took place. Motor inhibition was assessed with the Simon says task (Carlson and Wang, 2007), inhibition and shifting were assessed with the Hearts and Flowers task (Davidson et al., 2006) in the pre-test and again in a post-test (T2) immediately after the interventions. Results revealed significant correlations between motor functions and executive functions (especially shifting) at T1. There was no overall effect of the intervention. However, explorative analyses indicated a three-way interaction, with the intervention leading to accuracy gains only in the motor inhibition task and only if it was tested directly after the intervention. As an unexpected effect, this result needs to be treated with caution but may indicate that the effect of acute coordinative exercise is temporally limited and emerges only for motor inhibition, but not for cognitive inhibition or shifting. More generally, in contrast to other studies including older participants and endurance exercises, no general effect of an acute coordinative intervention on executive functions was revealed for kindergartners.

The Effects of Visual Discriminability and Rotation Angle on 30-Month-Olds' Search Performance in Spatial Rotation Tasks.

Tracking objects that are hidden and then moved is a crucial ability related to object permanence, which develops across several stages in early childhood. In spatial rotation tasks, children observe a target object that is hidden in one of two or more containers before the containers are rotated around a fixed axis. Usually, 30-month-olds fail to find the hidden object after it was rotated by 180°. We examined whether visual discriminability of the containers improves 30-month-olds' success in this task and whether children perform better after 90° than after 180° rotations. Two potential hiding containers with same or different colors were placed on a board that was rotated by 90° or 180° in a within-subjects design. Children (N = 29) performed above chance level in all four conditions. Their overall success in finding the object did not improve by differently colored containers. However, different colors prevented children from showing an inhibition bias in 90° rotations, that is, choosing the empty container more often when it was located close to them than when it was farther away: This bias emerged in the same colors condition but not in the different colors condition. Results are discussed in view of particular challenges that might facilitate or deteriorate spatial rotation tasks for young children.

Semantic congruency and the (reversed) Colavita effect in children and adults.

When presented with auditory, visual, or bimodal audiovisual stimuli in a discrimination task, adults tend to ignore the auditory component in bimodal stimuli and respond to the visual component only (i.e., Colavita visual dominance effect). The same is true for older children, whereas young children are dominated by the auditory component of bimodal audiovisual stimuli. This suggests a change of sensory dominance during childhood. The aim of the current study was to investigate, in three experimental conditions, whether children and adults show sensory dominance when presented with complex semantic stimuli and whether this dominance can be modulated by stimulus characteristics such as semantic (in)congruency, frequency of bimodal trials, and color information. Semantic (in)congruency did not affect the magnitude of the auditory dominance effect in 6-year-olds or the visual dominance effect in adults, but it was a modulating factor of the visual dominance in 9-year-olds (Conditions 1 and 2). Furthermore, the absence of color information (Condition 3) did not affect auditory dominance in 6-year-olds and hardly affected visual dominance in adults, whereas the visual dominance in 9-year-olds disappeared. Our results suggest that (a) sensory dominance in children and adults is not restricted to simple lights and sounds, as used in previous research, but can be extended to semantically meaningful stimuli and that (b) sensory dominance is more robust in 6-year-olds and adults than in 9-year-olds, implying a transitional stage around this age.

Symbolic versus non-symbolic magnitude estimations among children and adults.

The ability of children and adults to generate symbolic and non-symbolic magnitude estimations was examined in the light of their familiarity with numbers. Children (6-year-old kindergartners, 7-year-old first graders, and 9-year-old third graders) and adults made symbolic estimations either by saying number words that matched numbers of dots (i.e., perception task) or by generating numbers of dots that matched given number words (i.e., production task). In the non-symbolic estimation task, participants generated the corresponding numbers of dots they had seen previously (i.e., reproduction task). In line with the bidirectional mapping hypothesis, children and adults made underestimations in the perception task, overestimations in the production task, and intermediate estimations in the reproduction task. However, the performance of kindergartners and first graders showed significant deviations from the predictions of the bidirectional mapping hypothesis. Their performance in the production task lagged significantly behind that in the perception task, implying that these tasks are not mirrored processes among young children. In addition, they made systematic overestimations in the non-symbolic reproduction task, suggesting that biased mapping occurs here as well. The results are discussed with regard to children's familiarity with numbers and potential estimation strategies.

Mental rotation and the motor system: embodiment head over heels.

We examined whether body parts attached to abstract stimuli automatically force embodiment in a mental rotation task. In Experiment 1, standard cube combinations reflecting a human pose were added with (1) body parts on anatomically possible locations, (2) body parts on anatomically impossible locations, (3) colored end cubes, and (4) simple end cubes. Participants (N=30) had to decide whether two simultaneously presented stimuli, rotated in the picture plane, were identical or not. They were fastest and made less errors in the possible-body condition, but were slowest and least accurate in the impossible-body condition. A second experiment (N=32) replicated the results and ruled out that the poor performance in the impossible-body condition was due to the specific stimulus material. The findings of both experiments suggest that body parts automatically trigger embodiment, even when it is counterproductive and dramatically impairs performance, as in the impossible-body condition. It can furthermore be concluded that body parts cannot be used flexibly for spatial orientation in mental rotation tasks, compared to colored end cubes. Thus, embodiment appears to be a strong and inflexible mechanism that may, under certain conditions, even impede performance.

Juvenile domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domestica) use human-given cues in an object choice task.

Research on the comprehension of human-given cues by domesticated as well as non-domesticated species has received considerable attention over the last decade. While several species seem to be capable of utilizing these cues, former work with domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domestica) has shown inconclusive results. In this study, we investigated the use of human-given cues in an object choice task by young domestic pigs (N = 17; 7 weeks of age) who had very limited human contact prior to the experiments. Subjects had to choose between two bowls of which only one was baited with a reward. Over the course of five experiments, pigs were able to use proximal and, with some constraints, also distal pointing cues presented in both a dynamic-sustained and in a momentary manner. When the experimenter was pointing from the incorrect bowl towards the correct one, most of the subjects had problems solving the task-indicating that some form of stimulus/local enhancement affected pigs' decision making. Interestingly, pigs were able to utilize the body and head orientation of a human experimenter to locate the hidden reward but failed to co-orient when head or body orientation of the experimenter was directed into distant space with no bowls present. Control trials ruled out the possibility that other factors (e.g. odour cues) affected subjects' choice behaviour. Learning during experiments played a minor role and only occurred in three out of twelve test conditions. We conclude that domestic pigs, even at a very young age, are skilful in utilizing various human-given cues in an object choice task-raising the question whether pigs only used stimulus/local enhancement and associative learning processes or whether they were able to comprehend the communicative nature of at least some of these cues.

Further evidence for a spatial-numerical association in children before formal schooling.

Given the robust finding that number and space are associated systematically at least in school children and adults, it has been concluded that this association might be based on the frequent practice of reading or writing skills, which are usually consolidated by formal schooling. However, first studies contradict this assumption demonstrating that associations of "small" magnitudes with left space and of "large" magnitudes with right space exist already in preschoolers. The present study used a non-symbolic magnitude comparison task to examine whether kindergartners who have not yet been formally instructed in reading and writing show a SNARC effect, that is, whether they would respond more rapidly with the right hand to larger numbers and with the left hand to smaller numbers. This assumption was confirmed by the data. In view of further evidence for an association between number and space that evolves before children are proficient in reading and writing, the role of potential alternative culture-specific, individual, and universal foundations of this association is emphasized and discussed.

Comparing apples and pears in studies on magnitude estimations.

The present article is concerned with studies on magnitude estimations that strived to uncover the underlying mental representation(s) of magnitudes. We point out a number of methodological differences and shortcomings that make it difficult drawing general conclusions. To solve this problem, we propose a taxonomy by which those studies could be classified, taking into account central methodological aspects of magnitude estimation tasks. Finally, we suggest perspectives for future research on magnitude estimations, which might abandon the hunt for the mathematical model that explains estimations best and turn, instead, to investigate the underlying principles of estimations (e.g., strategies) and ways of their improvement.