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Description
Early childhood environment is critical to subsequent physical health in children and is influenced by children's primary caregivers \u2014 typically mothers. Maternal stress, one aspect of a child's environment, may shape the functioning of the child's physiological stress response system, which has been linked to later health outcomes, including pain. The current study evaluated whether: 1) early maternal stress, defined as maternal depressive symptoms and low socio-economic status, predicts later child pain; 2) early maternal stress relates to later child daily cortisol output; and 3) child's cortisol output across the day mediates the relation between early maternal stress and child pain. Maternal stress was assessed via questionnaires at twin age 12-months. At twin age seven years, twins' salivary cortisol was collected three times per day for three days. At twin age nine years, twins rated how often they experienced stomach, headache, and back pain weekly or more frequently. Results of multilevel linear and logistic regression analyses showed that early maternal stress did not predict later children's daily cortisol output or extent of child pain. Therefore, findings were inconsistent with the proposed mediation model. However, there was a marginally significant negative relation between child daily cortisol output and later extent of child pain. Current findings suggest that functioning of the stress response system, reflected in cortisol output, may have implications for the development of child pain. Future work evaluating intensely stressful early environments may provide clues about the links between a child's early environment and the development of his/her stress response system.
ContributorsRoth, Winter Rayne Nicole (Author) / Davis, Mary (Thesis director) / Miadich, Samantha (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Molecular Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
Fast mapping is the initial link infants make between a word and its referent, and it is crucial to later processes of learning the meanings of words. Despite the importance of fast mapping, previous research has suggested that fast mapping is fragile, with infants being unable to retain words learned through fast mapping longer than five minutes. The current study tested the robustness of fast mapping by imposing task irrelevant interruptions on a fast mapping task. Forty-seven infants (14.7 \u2014 17.4 months old) were assigned to a No Interruption condition, a Posture Interruption condition, or a Visual Interruption condition, and they performed a fast mapping task in which a novel object was named in one trial. Videos of the infants were coded for accuracy of fast mapping and for attentional behaviors (looking behavior) during the task. We found that infants did not learn novel word-object pairings when interrupted, demonstrating that infants' fast mapping abilities are easily disrupted. Overall, there was no evidence that looking behaviors were affected by interruptions, or that they were correlated with accuracy. These findings suggest that fast mapping is fragile in young infants, and further research is required to determine the mechanisms for infant learning, and how infants transition from fast to slow mapping processes.
ContributorsSmith, Emily J (Author) / Benitez, Viridiana (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12
Description
A cornerstone of children’s socio-cognitive development is understanding that others can have knowledge, thoughts, and perceptions that differ from one’s own. Preschool-aged children often have difficulty with this kind of social understanding, i.e., they lack an explicit theory of mind. The goal of this dissertation was to examine the role mental state language as a developmental mechanism of children’s early understanding of their own mental states (i.e., their introspective ability). Specifically, it was hypothesized that (1) parents’ ability to recognize and appropriately label their children’s mental states and (2) children’s linguistic ability to distinguish between their mental states shapes the development of children’s introspective ability. An initial prediction of the first hypothesis is that parents should recognized differences in the development of children’s self- and other-understanding in order to better help their children’s introspective development. In support of this prediction, parents (N = 400, Mage = 58 months, Range = 28-93 months) reported that children’s understanding of their own knowledge was greater than children’s understanding of others’ knowledge. A prediction of the second hypothesis is that children’s linguistic ability to distinguish between and appropriately label their own mental states should determine their ability to make fined grained judgments of mental states like certainty. In support of this prediction, children’s (N = 197, Mage = 56 months, Range = 36-82 months) ability to distinguish between their own knowledge and ignorance states was associated children’s ability to engage in uncertainty monitoring. Together, these findings provide support for the association between children’s linguistic environment and ability and their introspective development.
ContributorsGonzales, Christopher Ryan (Author) / Fabricius, William V. (Thesis advisor) / Spinrad, Tracy (Committee member) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Horne, Zachary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
For this master's thesis, a unique set of cognitive prompts, designed to be delivered through a teachable robotic agent, were developed for students using Tangible Activities for Geometry (TAG), a tangible learning environment developed at Arizona State University. The purpose of these prompts is to enhance the affordances of the tangible learning environment and help researchers to better understand how we can design tangible learning environments to best support student learning. Specifically, the prompts explicitly encourage users to make use of their physical environment by asking students to perform a number of gestures and behaviors while prompting students about domain-specific knowledge. To test the effectiveness of these prompts that combine elements of cognition and physical movements, the performance and behavior of students who encounter these prompts while using TAG will be compared against the performance and behavior of students who encounter a more traditional set of cognitive prompts that would typically be used within a virtual learning environment. Following this study, data was analyzed using a novel modeling and analysis tool that combines enhanced log annotation using video and user model generation functionalities to highlight trends amongst students.
ContributorsThomas, Elissa (Author) / Burleson, Winslow (Thesis advisor) / Muldner, Katarzyna (Committee member) / Walker, Erin (Committee member) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Many English Language Learner (ELL) children struggle with knowledge of vocabulary and syntax. Enhanced Moved by Reading to Accelerate Comprehension in English (EMBRACE) is an interactive storybook application that teaches children to read by moving pictures on the screen to act out the sentences in the text. However, EMBRACE presents the same level of text to all users, and it is limited in its ability to provide error feedback, as it can only determine whether a user action is right or wrong. EMBRACE could help readers learn more effectively if it personalized its instruction with texts that fit their current reading level and feedback that addresses ways to correct their mistakes. Improvements were made to the system by applying design principles of intelligent tutoring systems (ITSs). The new system added features to track the student’s reading comprehension skills, including vocabulary, syntax, and usability, based on various user actions, as well as features to adapt text complexity and provide more specific error feedback using the skills. A pilot study was conducted with 7 non-ELL students to evaluate the functionality and effectiveness of these features. The results revealed both strengths and weaknesses of the ITS. While skill updates appeared most accurate when users made particular kinds of vocabulary and syntax errors, it was not able to correctly identify other kinds of syntax errors or provide feedback when skill values became too high. Additionally, vocabulary error feedback and adapting the complexity of syntax were helpful, but syntax error feedback and adapting the complexity of vocabulary were not as helpful. Overall, children enjoy using EMBRACE, and building an intelligent tutoring system into the application presents a promising approach to make reading a both fun and effective experience.
ContributorsWong, Audrey (Author) / Walker, Erin (Thesis advisor) / Nelson, Brian (Committee member) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017