ERIC Number: EJ1131792
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017-Mar
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1467-7687
EISSN: N/A
Preschool Children's Control of Action Outcomes
Freier, Livia; Cooper, Richard P.; Mareschal, Denis
Developmental Science, v20 n2 Mar 2017
Naturalistic goal-directed behaviours require the engagement and maintenance of appropriate levels of cognitive control over relatively extended intervals of time. In two experiments, we examined preschool children's abilities to maintain top-down control throughout the course of a sequential task. Both 3- and 5-year-olds demonstrated good abilities to access goals at the lowest level of the representational hierarchy. However, only 5-year-olds consistently aligned their response choices with goals at superordinate levels. These findings suggest that the ability to maintain top-down control and adjust behavioural responses according to goals at multiple levels of abstraction undergoes a marked improvement throughout the preschool period. Results are discussed in relation to current accounts of cognitive control and the monitoring of conflict in sequential action.
Descriptors: Preschool Children, Developmental Stages, Age Differences, Decision Making, Goal Orientation, Cognitive Processes, Time, Behavior, Responses
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A