The role of conventionality and design in children's function judgments about malfunctioning artifacts.

This study investigated the individual influences of conventionality and designer's intent on function judgments of possibly malfunctioning artifacts. Children aged 4 and 5 years and 6 to 8 years were presented with stories about an artifact with two equally plausible functions, one labeled as either conventional or designed. Subsequently, a character attempted to use the artifact for the cued function, which resulted in either malfunction or successful use. The children's task was to identify the real function of the artifact. When the use attempt succeeded, 4- and 5-year-olds preferred conventional functions to the alternative (but did not show a clear preference between design functions and the alternative), and 6- to 8-year-olds preferred conventional and designed functions to the alternative. In case of malfunction, children's choices were at chance, where the effect of either conventional or design cues was less salient. This contrasts with a baseline condition where children avoided the malfunctioning alternatives. Presenting additional cues about an artifact's function can affect function judgments in cases of malfunction.

Do children imitate even when it is costly? New insights from a novel task.

Children have a proclivity to learn through faithful imitation, but the extent to which this applies under significant cost remains unclear. To address this, we investigated whether 4- to 6-year-old children (N = 97) would stop imitating to forego a desirable food reward. We presented participants with a task involving arranging marshmallows and craft sticks, with the goal being either to collect marshmallows or build a tower. Children replicated the demonstrated actions with high fidelity regardless of the goal, but retrieved rewards differently. Children either copied the specific actions needed to build a tower, prioritizing tower completion over reward; or adopted a novel convention of stacking materials before collecting marshmallows, and developed their own method to achieve better outcomes. These results suggest children's social learning decisions are flexible and context-dependent, yet that when framed by an ostensive goal, children imitated in adherence to the goal despite incurring significant material costs.

Children's distinct drive to reproduce costly rituals.

Costly rituals are ubiquitous and adaptive. Yet, little is known about how children develop to acquire them. The current study examined children's imitation of costly rituals. Ninety-three 4-6 year olds (47 girls, 45% Oceanians, tested in 2022) were shown how to place tokens into a tube to earn stickers, using either a ritualistic or non-ritualistic costly action sequence. Children shown the ritualistic actions imitated faithfully at the expense of gaining stickers; conversely, those shown the non-ritualistic actions ignored them and obtained maximum reward. This highlights how preschool children are adept at and motivated to learn rituals, despite significant material cost. This study provides insights into the early development of cultural learning and the adaptive value of rituals in group cognition.

Quantifying quality: The impact of measures of school quality on children's academic achievement across diverse societies.

Recent decades have seen a rapid acceleration in global participation in formal education, due to worldwide initiatives aimed to provide school access to all children. Research in high income countries has shown that school quality indicators have a significant, positive impact on numeracy and literacy-skills required to participate in the increasingly globalized economy. Schools vary enormously in kind, resources, and teacher training around the world, however, and the validity of using diverse school quality measures in populations with diverse educational profiles remains unclear. First, we assessed whether children's numeracy and literacy performance across populations improves with age, as evidence of general school-related learning effects. Next, we examined whether several school quality measures related to classroom experience and composition, and to educational resources, were correlated with one another. Finally, we examined whether they were associated with children's (4-12-year-olds, N = 889) numeracy and literacy performance in 10 culturally and geographically diverse populations which vary in historical engagement with formal schooling. Across populations, age was a strong positive predictor of academic achievement. Measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another, as were measures of access to educational resources and classroom experience and composition. The number of teachers per class and access to writing materials were key predictors of numeracy and literacy, while the number of students per classroom, often linked to academic achievement, was not. We discuss these results in the context of maximising children's learning environments and highlight study limitations to motivate future research. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We examined the extent to which four measures of school quality were associated with one another, and whether they predicted children's academic achievement in 10 culturally and geographically diverse societies. Across populations, measures related to classroom experience and composition were correlated with one another as were measures of access to educational resources to classroom experience and composition. Age, the number of teachers per class, and access to writing materials were key predictors of academic achievement across populations. Our data have implications for designing efficacious educational initiatives to improve school quality globally.

Morphologic aspects of the cervical (C3-C7) annular epiphysis: a skeletal study.

BACKGROUND CONTEXT: The annular epiphysis (AE) is a peripheral ring of cortical bone that forms a secondary ossification center in the superior and inferior surfaces of vertebral bodies (VBs). The AE is the last ossification site in the skeleton, typically forming at about the 25th year of life. The AE functions jointly with vertebral endplates to anchor the intervertebral discs to the VBs. PURPOSE: To establish accurate data on the sizes of the AE of the cervical spine (C3-C7); to compare the ratios between areas and the ratios of the AE to VBs; to compare the ratios between the superior and inferior VB surface areas; and to compare AE lengths between the posterior and anterior midsagittal areas. STUDY DESIGN: Measurement of 424 cervical spines (C3-C7) obtained from the skeletal collection of the Natural History Museum, Cleveland, Ohio (USA). METHODS: The sample was characterized by sex, age, and ethnic origin. The following measurements were recorded for each vertebra: (1) the surface area of the VBs and the AE, (2) the midsagittal anterior and posterior length of the AE, (3) the ratios between the AE and VB surface areas, and (4) the ratios between the superior and inferior disc surface areas. RESULTS: The study revealed that the AE and VBs in men were larger than in women. With age, the AE and VBs became larger; the ratio between the AE and VB surface was approximately 0.5 throughout the middle to lower cervical spine. The ratio of superior to inferior VBs was approximately 0.8. We found no differences between African Americans versus European Americans or between the anterior versus the posterior midsagittal length of the AE of the superior and inferior VBs. CONCLUSIONS: The ratios between the superior and inferior VBs are ≥0.8, and the ratio is the same for the entire middle to lower spine. Thus, the ratio between the superior and inferior VBs to the AE is ≥ 0.5. Men had larger AEs and VBs than women did, with both VBs and AEs becoming larger with age. Knowing these relationships are important so that orthopedic surgeons can best correct these issues in young patients (<25 years old) during spine surgery. The data reported here provide, for the first time, all the relevant sizes of the AE and VB. In future studies, AEs and VBs of living patients can be measured with computed tomography. CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE: The ER location and function are clinically significant showing any changes during life that might lead to clinical issues related to intervertebral discs such as intervertebral disc asymmetry, disc herniation, nerve pressure, cervical osteophytes and neck pain.

Revisiting the video deficit in technology-saturated environments: Successful imitation from people, screens, and social robots.

The "video deficit" is a well-documented effect whereby children learn less well about information delivered via a screen than the same information delivered in person. Research suggests that increasing social contingency may ameliorate this video deficit. The current study instantiated social contingency to screen-based information by embodying the screen within a socially interactive robot presented to urban Australian children with frequent exposure to screen-based communication. We failed to document differences between 22- to 26-month-old children's (N = 80) imitation of screen-based information embedded in a social robot and in-person humans. Furthermore, we did not replicate the video deficit with children imitating at similar levels regardless of the presentation medium. This failure to replicate supports the findings of a recent meta-analysis of video deficit research whereby there appears to be a steady decrease over time in the magnitude of the video deficit effect. We postulate that, should the video deficit effect be truly dwindling in effect size, the video deficit may soon be a historical artifact as children begin perceiving technology as relevant and meaningful in everyday life more and more. This research finds that observational-based learning material can be successfully delivered in person, via a screen, or via a screen embedded in a social robot.

Testing the bounds of compassion in young children.

Extensive research shows that, under the right circumstances, children are highly prosocial. Extending an already published paradigm, we aimed here to determine what factors might facilitate and inhibit compassionate behaviour. Across five experiments (N = 285), we provide new insight into the bounds of 4- to 5-year-old children's compassionate behaviour. In the first three experiments, we varied cost of compassion by changing the reward (Study 1), using explicit instructions (Study 2) and ownership (Study 3). In the final two experiments, we varied the target of the compassionate behaviour, examining adults compared with puppet targets (Study 4), and whether the target was an in-group member (Study 5). We found strong evidence that cost reduces compassionate responding. By contrast, the recipient of compassion did not appear to influence responding: children were equally likely to help a human adult and a puppet, and an in-group member and neutral agent. These findings demonstrate that for young children, personal cost appears to be a greater inhibitor to compassionate responding than who compassion is directed toward.

I may not like you, but I still care: Children differentiate moral concern from other constructs.

In industrialized societies, adults exhibit stable preferences for the types of people, animals, and entities they feel moral concern for (Crimston et al., 2016). Only one published study to date has utilized the moral circles paradigm to examine these preferences in children, finding that as children age, their preferences shift to become more similar to adults' (Neldner et al., 2018). However, it is currently unclear whether children's conceptualization of moral concern differs from that of other related social constructs. The aim of the current study was twofold: first, to test the moral circles paradigm in a new sample of children to see whether published patterns of moral concern could be replicated and, second, to investigate whether children distinguish moral concern from the related constructs of liking and familiarity. Australian children aged 4 to 10 years old (N = 281; 143 boys, 138 girls; predominantly middle class) placed 24 pictures of human, animal, and environmental entities on a stratified circle according to how much they cared, liked, or knew about the targets. We found similar patterns of moral prioritization to previous research (Neldner et al., 2018), replicating both stable preferences and age-related changes in children's moral concern for others. Crucially, we extend these findings by showing that children distinguish how much they care about entities from their levels of liking and knowing about them. This suggests children differentiate between moral concern and other social constructs early in development and display distinct patterns of prioritization when evaluating everyday entities according to these judgments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Revisiting an extant framework: Concerns about culture and task generalization.

The target article elaborates upon an extant theoretical framework, "Imitation and Innovation: The Dual Engines of Cultural Learning." We raise three major concerns: (1) There is limited discussion of cross-cultural universality and variation; (2) overgeneralization of overimitation and omission of other social learning types; and (3) selective imitation in infants and toddlers is not discussed.

Examining relations between performance on non-verbal executive function and verbal self-regulation tasks in demographically-diverse populations.

Self-regulation is a widely studied construct, generally assumed to be cognitively supported by executive functions (EFs). There is a lack of clarity and consensus over the roles of specific components of EFs in self-regulation. The current study examines the relations between performance on (a) a self-regulation task (Heads, Toes, Knees Shoulders Task) and (b) two EF tasks (Knox Cube and Beads Tasks) that measure different components of updating: working memory and short-term memory, respectively. We compared 107 8- to 13-year-old children (64 females) across demographically-diverse populations in four low and middle-income countries, including: Tanna, Vanuatu; Keningau, Malaysia; Saltpond, Ghana; and Natal, Brazil. The communities we studied vary in market integration/urbanicity as well as level of access, structure, and quality of schooling. We found that performance on the visuospatial working memory task (Knox Cube) and the visuospatial short-term memory task (Beads) are each independently associated with performance on the self-regulation task, even when controlling for schooling and location effects. These effects were robust across demographically-diverse populations of children in low-and middle-income countries. We conclude that this study found evidence supporting visuospatial working memory and visuospatial short-term memory as distinct cognitive processes which each support the development of self-regulation.

Characterization of deceased drug users in Denmark based on treatment status: A nationwide retrospective autopsy study.

BACKGROUND: Many drug users are not receiving treatment for their drug use. Little is known about drug users not receiving treatment, as they are difficult to identify and recruit for research. METHODS: We identified 479 autopsied decedents with illegal/unmarketed drug or opioid agonist treatment positive toxicological screenings from 2015 to 2016 in Denmark. Toxicological screenings from autopsy, and information on treatment status at time of death, health care utilization, educational attainment, employment status and prescription drug use from Danish national health registers were used for comparison between groups. RESULTS: Drug users not in treatment constituted 63.3% of the study population and died at a younger age than those in treatment (41 vs. 44 years). Fatal overdose was the most common cause of death in both groups. Nearly thrice as many drug users not in treatment died from somatic causes compared with drug users in treatment (18.2% vs. 6.8%). On average, drug users not in treatment received fewer prescriptions prior to their deaths than those in treatment, but non-prescribed medications were equally prevalent among both groups (74.3% vs. 81.3%) except for non-prescribed methadone which was significantly less prevalent among drug users not in treatment (33.3% vs. 42.6%). CONCLUSION: Two-thirds of decedents were not in treatment at time of death. Drug users not in treatment died more often from somatic causes compared to those in treatment. Decedents had equal amounts of non-prescribed psychotropic medication in the blood, but non-prescribed methadone was more common among those in treatment at the time of death.

The early ontogeny of infants' imitation of on screen humans and robots.

Traditionally, infants have learned how to interact with objects in their environment through direct observations of adults and peers. In recent decades these models have been available over different media, and this has introduced non-human agents to infants' learning environments. Humanoid robots are increasingly portrayed as social agents in on screen, but the degree to which infants are capable of observational learning from screen-based robots is unknown. The current study thus investigated how well 1- to 3-year-olds (N = 230) could imitate on-screen robots relative to on-screen and live humans. Participants exhibited an imitation deficit for robots that varied with age. Furthermore, the well-known video deficit did not replicate as expected, and was weak and transient relative to past research. Together, the findings documented here suggest that infants are learning from media in ways that differ from past generations, but that this new learning is nuanced when novel technologies are involved.

Social learning from media: The need for a culturally diachronic developmental psychology.

Since the proliferation of television sets into households began over half a century ago there has been widespread interest in the impact that viewing has on young children's development. Such interest has grown with the increasing availability of smart phones and tablets. In this review we examine the literature documenting human social learning and how this learning is impacted when the instructing agent appears on a screen instead of face-to-face. We then explore the shifting nature of screen-based media, with a focus on the increasingly socio-normative manner information is portrayed. We discuss how the changing nature of screen technology might be altering how children interpret what they see, and raise the possibility that this may render prevailing evidence as historical documentation, rather than setting out established developmental milestones that transcend the period in which they were documented. We contend that recognizing the significance of historically changing contexts in developmental psychology is timely when the COVID-19 climate is pushing data collection on-line for many labs, often using tasks that were developed primarily for face-to-face contexts.

Does helping now excuse cheating later? An investigation into moral balancing in children.

We often use our previous good behaviour to justify current immoral acts, and likewise perform good deeds to atone for previous immoral behaviour. These effects, known as moral self-licensing and moral cleansing (collectively, moral balancing), have yet to be observed in children. Thus, the aim in the current study was to investigate the developmental foundations of moral balancing. We examined whether children aged 4-5 years (N = 96) would be more likely to cheat on a task if they had previously helped a puppet at personal cost, and less likely to cheat if they had refused to help. This hypothesis was not supported, suggesting either that 4-5-year-old children do not engage in moral balancing or that the methodology used was not appropriate to capture this effect. We discuss implications and future research directions.

How economic inequality affects prosocial behavior in children across development.

Research has linked economically unequal environments to lower prosocial behavior in adults. However, we know little about how inequality affects children's prosociality. Here, 4- to 9-year-old children (N = 128) played a series of games with several puppets where points were awarded. The distribution of points was characterized by either high inequality or low inequality. Children's donation behavior (i.e., the number of stickers they donated to a poor child), resource division behavior (i.e., how they divided extra points among poor and rich puppets), and fairness perceptions (i.e., how fair they perceived the game to be) were measured in response. Although the experimental manipulation of inequality did not affect children's donations, exploratory analyses revealed that higher inequality in children's home suburb was linked to lower donation rates. Furthermore, with age, children distributed points with increasing concern for poorer individuals, and negative judgments of the inequality were linked to distributing resources to poorer individuals. Here we present the first comprehensive analysis of children's prosocial reactions to high and low inequality across development.

The man and the machine: Do children learn from and transmit tool-use knowledge acquired from a robot in ways that are comparable to a human model?

Robots are an increasingly prevalent presence in children's lives. However, little is known about the ways in which children learn from robots and whether they do so in the same way as they learn from humans. To investigate this, we adapted a previously established imitation paradigm centered on inefficient tool use. Children (3- to 6-year-olds; N = 121) were measured on their acquisition and transmission of normative knowledge modeled by a human or a robot. Children were more likely to adopt use of a normative tool and to transmit this knowledge to another when shown how to do so by the human than when shown how to do so by the robot. Older children (5- and 6-year-olds) were less likely than younger children (3- and 4-year-olds) to select the normative tool. Our findings suggest that preschool children are capable of copying and transmitting normative techniques from both human and robot models, albeit at different rates and dependent on age.

Does Neonatal Imitation Exist? Insights From a Meta-Analysis of 336 Effect Sizes.

Neonatal imitation is a cornerstone in many theoretical accounts of human development and social behavior, yet its existence has been debated for the past 40 years. To examine possible explanations for the inconsistent findings in this body of research, we conducted a multilevel meta-analysis synthesizing 336 effect sizes from 33 independent samples of human newborns, reported in 26 articles. The meta-analysis found significant evidence for neonatal imitation (d = 0.68, 95% CI = [0.39, 0.96], p < .001) but substantial heterogeneity between study estimates. This heterogeneity was not explained by any of 13 methodological moderators identified by previous reviews, but it was associated with researcher affiliation, test of moderators (QM) (15) = 57.09, p < .001. There are at least two possible explanations for these results: (a) Neonatal imitation exists and its detection varies as a function of uncaptured methodological factors common to a limited set of studies, and (2) neonatal imitation does not exist and the overall positive result is an artifact of high researcher degrees of freedom.

When efficiency attenuates imitation in preschool children.

Children recognise the social value of imitation but do not opt for tools that are 'normative' if they are also dysfunctional. We investigated whether children would replicate a normative method in a tool-learning task if it was instrumentally functional but less efficient than an alternative. Four- to six-year-old children were presented with a sticker-retrieving task and two equally functional tool options that differed in efficiency. The inefficient tool was highlighted as the normative option. Verbal descriptors that established the normative value of the inefficient tool (e.g., 'everybody' uses this) did not motivate children to use it. The majority of children opted for instrumental efficiency over conformity.

Cultural Components of Sex Differences in Color Preference.

Preferences for pink and blue were tested in children aged 4-11 years in three small-scale societies: Shipibo villages in the Peruvian Amazon, kastom villages in the highlands of Tanna Island, Vanuatu, and BaYaka foragers in the northern Republic of Congo; and compared to children from an Australian global city (total N = 232). No sex differences were found in preference for pink in any of the three societies not influenced by global culture (ds - 0.31-0.23), in contrast to a female preference for pink in the global city (d = 1.24). Results suggest that the pairing of female and pink is a cultural phenomenon and is not driven by an essential preference for pink in girls.

Can a robot teach me that? Children's ability to imitate robots.

Commensurate with constant technological advances, social robots are increasingly anticipated to enter homes and classrooms; however, little is known about the efficacy of social robots as teaching tools. To investigate children's learning from robots, 1- to 3-year-olds observed either a human or a robot demonstrate two goal-directed object manipulation tasks and were then given the opportunity to act on the objects. Children exhibited less imitation from robotic models that varied with task complexity and age, a phenomenon we term the "robot deficit." In addition, the more children engaged with the robot prior to administration of the imitation task, the more likely they were to replicate the robot's actions. These findings document how children are able to learn from robots but that ongoing design of robotic platforms needs to be oriented to developing more socially engaging means of interacting.