Evaluative conditioning (EC) refers to a change in liking of a conditioned stimulus (CS) consecutive to its repeated pairing with a valent unconditioned stimulus (US). We relied on a multinomial processing tree model to compare the processes underlying EC in middle-aged children (n = 57, M[subscript age] = 8.65, range = 6.94-11.03; 31 females) and…

In the adult brain, biases in the allocation of spatial attention can be measured using a line bisection task and are directly relatable to neural attention signals in the fronto-parietal attention network. Behavioral studies on the development of spatial biases have yielded a host of inconsistent results, likely due to variance in sample size,…

Cognitive control can be triggered by explicit or implicit events; it has been proposed that these two possibilities tap into dissociable mechanisms. In this study, we investigate this idea by testing whether young children, who struggle with explicitly triggered control, can demonstrate proportion congruency effects--which are based on implicit…

While working memory (WM) is a powerful predictor for children's school outcomes, autistic children are more likely to experience delays. This study compared autistic children and their neurotypical peers' WM development over their elementary school years, including relative growth and period of plasticity. Using a nationally-representative…

We investigated the effect of cognitive training of executive functions on children's cognitive outcomes. To address this issue, a systematic meta-analysis of published research articles on cognitive training interventions was performed considering children's age, training duration, -procedure, and -technology in moderator analyses. The results (N…

Mathematical knowledge is constructed hierarchically from basic understanding of quantities and the symbols that denote them. Discrimination of numerical quantity in both symbolic and non-symbolic formats has been linked to mathematical problem-solving abilities. However, little is known of the extent to which overlap in quantity representations…

The lack of research exploring the influence of dynamic visual narratives on inference skills prompted the present study with an aim to profile the inference skills in school children between the ages of 6 years and 9 years 11 months using dynamic visual narratives. A total of 80 participants were considered for the study. An animated story was…

The study aimed to investigate the effect of an interdisciplinary STEM course on children's attitudes of learning and engineering design skills. A total of 449 elementary school children in China were recruited from three different grade levels (i.e., second, fourth and sixth grade) to participate in this study. All participants attended a weekly…

Advertising towards children confirms the importance of marketing communication, as they are important for companies that offer a range of products and services. We study the influence of advertising messages from traditional media on different children's age groups, via the observed branded products and the examined credibility of advertisements,…

The aim of this study is to determine school readiness of primary school students in mixed-age classrooms. The sample of this study, using embedded mixed method design, consists of 909 first grade students in primary school and 30 primary school teachers determined by stratified purposeful sampling method. In this study, "Primary School…

The present study aims to understand children's behavior within classroom settings in terms of conditioning theories. It was designed based on grounded theory. Data were collected through participant observation and 98 children whose ages varied between 6 and 10 years were observed. Data were inductively analyzed. Findings indicated that…

Scientific modeling (SM) is a core practice of science and an important component of scientific literacy. Supporting students in developing the competence to construct, use, evaluate, and revise models is hence of particular relevance. While research has shown that spatial visualization (SV), a core component of spatial ability, is correlated with…

The development of cognitive control enables children to better resist acting based on distracting information that interferes with the current action. Cognitive control improvement serves different functions that differ in part by the type of interference to resolve. Indeed, resisting to interference at the task-set level or at the…

Language attitudes play a vital role in the way individuals and societies perceive, use and learn languages, and communicate with other cultures. They are formed in a specific political, ideological, and cultural context and change over time, which is why researchers focus on studying language attitudes of different age groups and also different…

Differentiation hypotheses concern changes in the structural organization of cognitive abilities that depend on the level of general intelligence (ability differentiation) or age (developmental differentiation). Part 1 of this article presents a review of the literature on ability and developmental differentiation effects in children, revealing…