| 1. |
- Fransson, Mari, et al.
(author)
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Is middle childhood attachment related to social functioning in young adulthood?
- 2016
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In: Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. - : Wiley. - 0036-5564 .- 1467-9450. ; 57:2, s. 108-116
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The aim of the present study (N = 69) was to examine whether middle childhood attachment, measured using the Separation Anxiety Test (Slough, Goyette & Greenberg, 1988), predicts aspects of social functioning (social initiative, prosocial orientation, social anxiety, loneliness) in young adulthood. Insecurity-avoidance at age 8.5 years was, as expected, negatively related to social initiative and prosocial orientation, and was also positively related to social anxiety and loneliness at age 21 years. In addition, insecurity-avoidance contributed to developmental change in social anxiety from middle childhood to young adulthood. Contrary to our expectations, the two security scales were generally unrelated to future social functioning. Taken together, these results extend previous research by showing that insecurity-avoidance is related to social functioning also beyond childhood and adolescence, and that it contributes to developmental change in social functioning over time. The scarcity of prospective links for the attachment security scales points to the need for future studies addressing when and why attachment does not contribute to future social functioning.
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| 2. |
- Gottwald, Janna M., et al.
(author)
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An Embodied Account of Early Executive-Function Development : Prospective Motor Control in Infancy Is Related to Inhibition and Working Memory
- 2016
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In: Psychological Science. - : SAGE Publications. - 0956-7976 .- 1467-9280. ; 27:12, s. 1600-1610
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The importance of executive functioning for later life outcomes, along with its potential to be positively affected by intervention programs, motivates the need to find early markers of executive functioning. In this study, 18-month-olds performed three executive-function tasksinvolving simple inhibition, working memory, and more complex inhibitionand a motion-capture task assessing prospective motor control during reaching. We demonstrated that prospective motor control, as measured by the peak velocity of the first movement unit, is related to infants' performance on simple-inhibition and working memory tasks. The current study provides evidence that motor control and executive functioning are intertwined early in life, which suggests an embodied perspective on executive-functioning development. We argue that executive functions and prospective motor control develop from a common source and a single motive: to control action. This is the first demonstration that low-level movement planning is related to higher-order executive control early in life.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Granvald, Viktor, et al.
(author)
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Relations between key executive functions and aggression in childhood
- 2016
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In: Child Neuropsychology. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0929-7049 .- 1744-4136. ; 22:5, s. 537-555
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The present study examined relationships between three key executive functions (working memory, inhibition, and mental set-shifting) and multiple types of aggression in a general population sample of 9-year-old children. One hundred and forty-eight children completed a battery of executive function tasks and were rated on aggression by their primary teachers. All executive function (EF) composites were related to a composite measure of aggression. Working memory (WM) was most consistently related to the different types of aggression (overt, relational, reactive, and proactive), whereas inhibition and mental set-shifting only were related to relational and reactive aggression, respectively. Specificity in relations (studied as independent contributions) was generally low with the exception of the relation between WM and relational aggression. Taken together, our results highlight the roles of WM and relational aggression in EF-aggression relations in middle childhood.
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| 6. |
- Gredebäck, Gustaf, et al.
(author)
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Action Prediction Allows Hypothesis Testing via Internal Forward Models at 6 Months of Age
- 2018
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In: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-1078. ; 9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We propose that action prediction provides a cornerstone in a learning process known as internal forward models. According to this suggestion infants' predictions (looking to the mouth of someone moving a spoon upward) will moments later be validated or proven false (spoon was in fact directed toward a bowl), information that is directly perceived as the distance between the predicted and actual goal. Using an individual difference approach we demonstrate that action prediction correlates with the tendency to react with surprise when social interactions are not acted out as expected (action evaluation). This association is demonstrated across tasks and in a large sample (n = 118) at 6 months of age. These results provide the first indication that infants might rely on internal forward models to structure their social world. Additional analysis, consistent with prior work and assumptions from embodied cognition, demonstrates that the latency of infants' action predictions correlate with the infant's own manual proficiency.
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| 7. |
- Johansson, Maria, et al.
(author)
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Individual differences in early executive functions : A longitudinal study from 12 to 36 months
- 2016
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In: Infant and Child Development. - : Wiley. - 1522-7227 .- 1522-7219. ; 25:6, s. 533-549
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- It has been proposed that executive functions develop in a hierarchical fashion, such that early, simple abilities seen already during the first year of life become increasingly coordinated with development, thereby enabling the emergence of more complex abilities. Although this hierarchical model has received support from empirical studies comparing executive function task performance across age groups, necessary support from longitudinal studies taking an individual differences perspective on development is missing. In addition, the model stresses the importance of attention in executive function development, but we do not know in what way attention contributes to the continued development once the earliest forms of simple functions have emerged. Using a longitudinal design, the present study investigated the relations between individual differences in simpler forms of executive functions as well as sustained attention at age 12months and more complex executive functions at 24 and 36months. The results indicated partial support for the hierarchical model, with infant inhibition being predictive of working memory in toddlerhood. In addition, at 12months, sustained attention contributed to the development of toddler executive functions via the simple executive functions. This suggests that by this age, sustained attention has become an integrated part of early, simple executive functions.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Johansson, Maria, et al.
(author)
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Sustained attention in infancy as a longitudinal predictor of self-regulatory functions
- 2015
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In: Infant Behavior and Development. - : Elsevier BV. - 0163-6383 .- 1879-0453. ; 41, s. 1-11
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Previous literature suggests that attention processes such as sustained attention would con-stitute a developmental foundation for the self-regulatory functions executive functioningand effortful control (e.g., Garon, Bryson, & Smith, 2008; Rothbart, Derryberry, & Posner,1994). Our main aim was to test this hypothesis by studying whether sustained attentionat age 1 year can predict individual differences in self-regulatory functions at age 2 years.Longitudinal data from 66 infants and their parents were included in the study. Sustainedattention was assessed during free play at age 1 year; executive functioning, measured usingan eye-tracking version of the A-not-B task, and effortful control, measured using parentalratings, were assessed at both age 1 and age 2 years. The results did support a longitudinalprediction of individual differences in 2-year-olds’ self-regulatory functions as a function ofsustained attention at age 1 year. We also found significant improvement in both executivefunctioning and effortful control over time, and the two self-regulatory constructs wererelated in toddlerhood but not in infancy. The study helps increase our understanding ofthe early development of self-regulatory functions necessary for identifying developmentalrisks and, in the future, for developing new interventions.
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| 10. |
- Kenward, Ben, et al.
(author)
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Saccadic reaction times in infants and adults : Spatiotemporal factors, gender, and interlaboratory variation.
- 2017
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In: Developmental Psychology. - : American Psychological Association (APA). - 0012-1649 .- 1939-0599. ; 53:9, s. 1750-1764
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Saccade latency is widely used across infant psychology to investigate infants’ understanding of events. Interpreting particular latency values requires knowledge of standard saccadic RTs, but there is no consensus as to typical values. This study provides standard estimates of infants’ (n = 194, ages 9 to 15 months) saccadic RTs under a range of different spatiotemporal conditions. To investigate the reliability of such standard estimates, data is collected at 4 laboratories in 3 countries. Results indicate that reactions to the appearance of a new object are much faster than reactions to the deflection of a currently fixated moving object; upward saccades are slower than downward or horizontal saccades; reactions to more peripheral stimuli are much slower; and this slowdown is greater for boys than girls. There was little decrease in saccadic RTs between 9 and 15 months, indicating that the period of slow development which is protracted into adolescence begins in late infancy. Except for appearance and deflection differences, infant effects were weak or absent in adults (n = 40). Latency estimates and spatiotemporal effects on latency were generally consistent across laboratories, but a number of lab differences in factors such as individual variation were found. Some but not all differences were attributed to minor procedural differences, highlighting the importance of replication. Confidence intervals (95%) for infants’ median reaction latencies for appearance stimuli were 242 to 250 ms and for deflection stimuli 350 to 367 ms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved)
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