Did Chinese children with imaginary companions attribute more agencies to non-human items: Evidences from behavioral cues and appearance characteristics.

Previous studies have focused on the relationship between imaginary companions (ICs) and children's social developments. As far as we know, few studies have focused on the relationship between ICs and children's agency attributions. This study aimed to explore the potential differences in agency attributions between children with and without ICs, children with egalitarian IC relationships and hierarchical IC relationships. Children's agency attributions were measured by two experiments. One was based on behavioral cues (Random animations/ToM animations) and the other was based on appearance characteristics (ball/doll). The results revealed that children with ICs attributed more cognitive properties to Random and ToM animations than children without ICs. Compared with children without ICs, children with ICs attributed marginally more biological properties to a ball and more psychological properties to a ball and a doll. However, children with egalitarian and hierarchical IC relationships did not differ in their agency attributions. The results suggest that children with ICs are more likely to attribute agencies to non-human items with behavioral cues or appearance characteristics than children without ICs. Compared with child-IC relationship qualities, IC status may be more related to children's agency attributions. However, only a correlation between IC status and children's agency attributions was found in this study and it is interesting for future researchers to investigate the potential causal directions between children's IC status and their agency attributions. If one of the causal directions or both the causal directions exist, future researchers can further explore the underlying mechanism.

The roles of behavioral and affective cues and false belief in children's trait attributions.

Children as young as 3 years can make trait attributions based on behavioral and emotional cues, but such skills continue to develop across childhood. ​Theory of mind understanding, the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others, may provide a foundation for early development of trait attributions. The purpose of the current study was to explore the impact of behavioral and affective cues on children's trait attributions, if their attributes changed incrementally across five repeated instances of an observed behavior, and to what extent such patterns of attributions are related to false belief, a key concept of theory of mind. A total of 115 3- to 5-year-olds completed theory of mind tasks and two trait attribution tasks with affect and the nature of behavior (helpful/unhelpful) varied. Use of a quantitative histogram enabled identification of subtle changes in attributions across episodes. Results indicated that preschool-aged children rated characters as less likable with repeated instances of unhelpful behavior, with meaningful changes occurring after a second case of behavior. The 5-year-olds were more sensitive to differences in helpfulness than the other two age groups. In addition, the 4-year-olds rated smiling helpful characters more positively across time, suggesting a potential impact of emotional cues. Moreover, false belief was related to, yet did not account for, children's attributions. Factors affecting young children's formation of trait attributions are discussed.

Cues for feigning screening in whiplash associated disorders.

The objective of this work is to evaluate the ability of a series of possible feigning indicators, extracted from relevant literature in the field, to discriminate between clinical patients with genuine symptomatology and instructed malingerers. A sample of 273 participants divided into two groups was used for this study: 153 whiplash associated disorder patients who were evaluated at a multidisciplinary medical center in the region of Murcia (Spain), between December 2017 and March 2019 and 120 healthy controls with malingering instructions, students of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Murcia. In order for researchers to evaluate the indicators included in the study, a 22-step checklist (CDS) was developed, consisting of 22 criteria divided into 5 dimensions. Our results show that 18 of 22 indicators could discriminate between groups. Dimension 2 "Attitude toward the situation of illness" presented the greatest capacity for discrimination. In general terms, malingerers express a much more negative experience of the condition than the clinical patients.

Getting a grip on early intention understanding: The role of motor, cognitive, and social factors.

This chapter considers various factors that facilitate infants' understanding of other people's intentions. As adults, we view the actions people perform around us as intentional, to achieve a goal, rather than idle movements. For example, when observing another person perform a simple grasping action, such as picking up a slice of pizza, we perceive this action as goal-directed. Due to our understanding of the person's intention, we focus more so on the relation between the person and their goal, rather than the motion involved in the action. Infants develop an understanding of intentional agents and their goals within the first year of life. This chapter reviews multiple factors that are at play in facilitating infants' learning about the intentions of others' actions. We consider this from various perspectives, including the role of active experience, sensitivity to behavioral cues, cognitive factors, and social factors. We first review evidence concerning infants' learning of intentional actions from active experience. We then go on to evaluate how this learning could also come about via comparison processes, statistical learning, and use of behavioral cues such as object labeling and action effects. We also review social factors such as infant-directed actions and triadic engagement within social interactions that emerging evidence suggests are helpful in facilitating infants' understanding of other people's actions. Finally, we consider the extent to which these factors interact with one another in different contexts, as well as implications and future directions.

The evolutionary significance of pretend play: Two-year-olds' interpretation of behavioral cues.

Pretend play begins very early in human life. A key question is why, when figuring out reality is young children's major developmental task, they engage in its deliberate falsification. A second key question is how children know that pretend events are not real. Here we report three experiments addressing the latter question and providing indirect evidence for speculation on the first question. Children (N = 96) were shown actors eating or pretending to eat from covered bowls, and they had to indicate, on the basis of the actors' behavioral signs, which actor was pretending to eat or had the real food. Even 24-month-olds could do so when the contents of the bowls were shown before the actions, and even when substitute objects were shown. However, when one of the bowls contained imaginary objects (i.e., was empty), even 30-month-olds could not indicate which actor was pretending. These studies show how the ability to interpret pretending from behavioral cues develops gradually as children's representational abilities become more free of contextual support. We propose that, from an evolutionary and ontogenetic standpoint, pretend play might serve to heighten children's sensitivity to social signs. This sensitivity could assist the development of theory of mind, with which social pretend play is associated. In this way, pretend play in humans might serve a similar purpose to play fighting in other species: In both cases, play might sensitize the organism to social signs that will allow for sophisticated coordination of social behavior later in life.

A LONGITUDINAL EXAMINATION OF TODDLERS' BEHAVIORAL CUES AS A FUNCTION OF SUBSTANCE-ABUSING MOTHERS' DISENGAGEMENT.

As a group, substance-abusing parents are at risk for maladaptive parenting. The association between substance abuse and parenting may result, in part, from parents' emotional disengagement from the parent-child relationship, which makes perceiving and responding to children's cues more challenging. In this study, we examined whether substance-abusing mothers' levels of disengagement from their relationship with their children (ages 2-44 months), operationalized in two different ways using parenting narratives (representational and linguistic disengagement), prospectively predicted children's engagement and disengagement cues during a structured mother-child interaction. Within a sample of 29 mothers, we tested the hypotheses that greater maternal disengagement at Time 1 would predict a decrease in children's engagement and an increase in children's disengagement at Time 2. Results indicated that representational disengagement predicted a decrease in children's engagement cues whereas linguistic disengagement predicted an increase in children's disengagement cues. Results provide partial support for a reciprocal, iterative process in which mothers and children mutually adjust their emotional and behavioral disengagement with one another.