ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B
主办:中国心理学会
   中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理学报 ›› 2008, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (03): 319-326.

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热执行功能对儿童标准窗口任务测试的影响

吴文婕; 张莉;冯廷勇;李红   

  1. 西南大学认知与人格教育部重点实验室,重庆北碚,400715
  • 收稿日期:2007-03-27 修回日期:1900-01-01 发布日期:2008-03-30 出版日期:2008-03-30
  • 通讯作者: 李红

The Effect of Hot Executive Function on Children’s Test with the Standard Windows Task

Wu Wenjie;Zhang Li;Feng Tingyong;Li Hong   

  1. Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, 400715, China
  • Received:2007-03-27 Revised:1900-01-01 Online:2008-03-30 Published:2008-03-30
  • Contact: Li Hong

摘要: 主要考察热执行功能对3~4岁儿童标准窗口任务测试的影响。实验采取3×3的被试间设计。设置了3种条件:标准指示、“强化竞争”指示和无对手指示;将随机抽取的270名被试分为3个年龄段,以检测3~4儿童在窗口任务中的认知发展趋势。结果表明:⑴热执行功能也是影响3~4儿童标准窗口任务测试的一个主要因素;⑵3岁后期是3~4岁儿童在标准窗口任务中所体现出来的认知发展差异的分界年龄;⑶3~4岁儿童在窗口任务中还表现出规则推理能力的差异

关键词: 窗口任务, 热执行功能, 冷执行功能, 儿童

Abstract:

The windows task, a nonverbal measure, which was first used by Russell in 1991, is used to test children’s strategic deception. Investigators such as Russell J, Hala S, and Carlson S M explored how the inhibitory control skill influenced 3- to 4-year-old children’s performance on the windows task. Their results revealed that younger children were incapable of strategic deception. Moreover, reducing the difficulty of the executive demands could make the children improve performance on all 20 of their trials but not the first one. However, some researchers suggested that it was the ability to rule inference or theory of mind that challenged the young children. Thus, there were different arguments about why the children could not succeed in the windows task. In our opinion, the hot executive function may play an important role in children’s performance on the test, because in the windows task, candies constitute the treat and encourage the children to compete with the opponent, who was played by experimenter 2. Our study tried to separate hot executive function factors from cool executive function factors concerning the windows task to examine whether and how the hot executive function factors affected children’s performance on the task test. Further, it was hypothesized that emphasizing on the competition would cause the children to perform much worse.
The experiment used a 3 × 3 between-group design. There were three experimental conditions as follows: standard condition, emphasized competition condition, and no-opponent condition. The experiment involved 270 participants, who were divided into 3 age groups. The experiment aimed to explore the cognitive development of 3- to 4-year-old children. Each condition included a training phase and a testing phase. Only the participants who passed the training phase could participate in the testing phase. The training phase was included to ensure that the children understood both the required response modes and the rules for winning the treat from the opponent. The response modes of the training phase matched those of the experimental conditions.
Chi-Square analyses revealed that there were significant differences among the first trial performance of the three age groups as well as three conditions (age groups: x2 (2) = 28.665, p < 0.001; conditions: x2 (2) = 8.305, p < 0.05); however, the non-group performed higher than the random level on the first trial.
The 3 (age groups) × 3 (experimental conditions) two-way ANOVA analyses revealed that the main effects of both age groups and experimental conditions were significant (p < 0.001), and the interaction between them was salient (p < 0.05). Further, the simple effect analyses displayed that the three age groups performed differently in each condition, and the three conditions revealed differences in performance in each age group.
The following conclusions were drawn: (1) hot executive function factors such as competition, treat, and emotions/motivation challenged the young children on the windows task; (2) the late 3-year-olds (about 3 years and 9 months old) represented the age boundary between 3- to 4-year-olds with regard to the windows task test; and (3) 3- to 4-year-old children demonstrated some cognitive development tendencies in the windows task, such as the capacity of rule inference and inhibitory control skill

Key words: windows task, hot executive function, cool executive function, children

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