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Immersive Virtual Reality Technology (IVR) is a visual multi-sensory computer-simulated environment that perceptually surrounds an individual, creating the illusion that one has “stepped inside” and is included in, and interacting with the generated world. Although IVR has been suggested as a tool to enhance learning, existing work has not examined how IVR presentations, compared with other types of storytelling, facilitate or interfere with children’s memory formation. Here, we present data from a study of seventy 6- and 7-year-old children randomly assigned to experience a story in one of three modalities: IVR, video, or a paper-based book. We assessed the children’s story recall and their ability to identify the protagonist’s emotions. Results showed that, overall, children in the IVR condition performed better in the memory-recall task than the children in the video and book conditions. The most pronounced difference in memory performance was between the IVR and book conditions. In the IVR versus video conditions, 6-year-olds performed significantly better in the IVR condition than in the video condition, while 7-year-olds performed similarly in both digital-story conditions. We found no effects of condition on children’s attribution of emotions to the story’s protagonist. We conclude that IVR may enhance children’s ability to learn story content in certain situations.

Children exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV) are at heightened risk of emotional and behavioural problems. However, not all children exposed to IPV experience difficulties. Many display posi...

Exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) during childhood is a risk factor for poor emotional-behavioral functioning. Despite this, many children show resilience in the face of IPV exposure. The current study aimed to identify characteristics associated with positive emotional-behavioral outcomes in 4-year-old children exposed to IPV in early life. Data were drawn from the Maternal Health Study (MHS), a prospective study of women during pregnancy and following the birth of their first child. Women were recruited from six Melbourne public hospitals between 2003 and 2005. Mother–child dyads ( n = 1060) were included in the study using data collected during pregnancy; 12 months postpartum; and four years postpartum. Of the children exposed to IPV in early life, 38% displayed emotional-behavioral resilience at four years. Maternal physical wellbeing, mothers’ return to work or study and no exposure to IPV at four years were associated with child resilience. These results highlighted the importance of prioritizing mothers’ physical wellbeing and access to employment in promoting positive outcomes for their children. The results also reinforced the significant role of early intervention; when exposure to IPV stops at an early age, children are more likely to experience emotional-behavioral resilience.

Young children's willingness to spontaneously help others is the subject of a large body of research investigating the ontogeny of moral behavior and thought. A developing debate centers around the extent to which social factors influence the desire to help. Familiarity with the person needing help is one such factor that varies across many studies but has not been systematically investigated. In Experiment 1, we show that toddlers were significantly more likely to assist a person on an out-of-reach clothespin task when they had previously become familiar with that person. Moreover, and in contrast to previous work, we found that becoming familiar with a person increases helpfulness only toward that person and does not transfer to an unknown person. We further demonstrate, in Experiment 2A, that children were equally likely to approach and take a sticker from an experimenter with whom they were familiar or unfamiliar-thereby ruling out wariness of strangers as the key driver for familiarity effects in Experiment 1. Moreover, in Experiment 2B, we show that children were more likely to help the previously unfamiliar partner (from Experiment 2A) after the partner gave the child the sticker. We conclude that familiarity is an ecologically important social influencer of toddler helping behavior.

Objective Seminal theorists such as Erikson, Bruner, Frankl and Rogers have underscored the importance of meaning in psychological life. However contemporary scholars interested in meaning have noted that further investigation of the individual differences associated with meaning-making is still needed. In the present study we explored whether individual differences in trait self-awareness were associated with perceptions of choice meaningfulness in a decision-making task. Results All participants engaged in a decision-making task wherein they were asked to choose their preferred painting out of pairs of sequentially presented abstract paintings. Participants in the experimental condition were provided with feedback that their choices had been diagnostic of important personality characteristics whereas those in the control condition were not. All participants were then prompted to reflect on their choices before rating the subjective meaningfulness that they associated with their choices and completing measures to assess trait self-awareness. As anticipated, persons with higher levels of trait self-awareness tended to seek out and find more meaning compared to those lower in trait self-awareness. However contrary to expectations, feedback about the self-relevance of choices did not moderate perceptions of choice meaningfulness. Implications of these findings as well as directions for future research are also discussed.

Young children help others in a range of situations, relatively indiscriminate of the characteristics of those they help. Recent results have suggested that young children’s helping behavior extends even to humanoid robots. However, it has been unclear how characteristics of robots would influence children’s helping behavior. Considering previous findings suggesting that certain robot features influence adults’ perception of and their behavior toward robots, the question arises of whether young children’s behavior and perception would follow the same principles. The current study investigated whether two key characteristics of a humanoid robot (animate autonomy and friendly expressiveness) would affect children’s instrumental helping behavior and their perception of the robot as an animate being. Eighty-two 3-year-old children participated in one of four experimental conditions manipulating a robot’s ostensible animate autonomy (high/low) and friendly expressiveness (friendly/neutral). Helping was assessed in an out-of-reach task and animacy ratings were assessed in a post-test interview. Results suggested that both children’s helping behavior, as well as their perception of the robot as animate, were unaffected by the robot’s characteristics. The findings indicate that young children’s helping behavior extends largely indiscriminately across two important characteristics. These results increase our understanding of the development of children’s altruistic behavior and animate-inanimate distinctions. Our findings also raise important ethical questions for the field of child-robot interaction.

Predictive coding theories of perception highlight the importance of constantly updated internal models of the world to predict future sensory inputs. Importantly, such theories suggest that prediction-error signalling should be specific to the violation of predictions concerning distinct attributes of the same stimulus. To interrogate this as yet untested prediction, we focused on two different aspects of face perception (identity and orientation) and investigated whether cortical regions which process particular stimulus attributes also signal prediction violations with respect to those same stimulus attributes. We employed a paradigm using sequential trajectories of images to create perceptual expectations about face orientation and identity, and then parametrically violated each attribute. Using MEG data, we identified double dissociations of expectancy violations in the dorsal and ventral visual streams, such that the right fusiform gyrus showed greater prediction-error signals to identity violations than to orientation violations, whereas the left angular gyrus showed the converse pattern of results. Our results suggest that perceptual prediction-error signalling is directly linked to regions associated with the processing of different stimulus properties.

Recent media reports have suggested video communication use by young children. However, the popularity of video communication by young children has yet been determined. Although some research has shown similarities between young children’s experience of a parent’s physical and virtual presence, little is known about the ecological applications of video communication and its benefits to young children. Using a brief quantitative questionnaire, this study shows that younger children started video communication at significantly earlier ages than the older children in the sample (n = 308). Qualitative responses from parents of 17 children suggested different perceptions of their children's video communication experience. These preliminary findings are considered in the context of the value of video communication in different situations, the developmental factors associated with screen media including memory transfer across modalities, and the development of skills that facilitate effective communication.

Young children help people achieve their goals in various situations, even in the absence of verbal requests or rewards. Such help is typically described as “indiscriminate” because children's help is robust across many aspects of the recipient in need. However, as previous studies have almost entirely focused on human recipients, the question arises as to how indiscriminate children's helping behaviour really is. Here, we aimed to investigate whether young children's helping behaviour would extend to a nonhuman entity—a humanoid robot. In an experimental between-subjects design, 40 children witnessed a robot drop an object out of its reach either seemingly intentionally or unintentionally. Results showed that children typically returned the object, but only when it was dropped apparently unintentionally—indicating that children attribute goals to a robot, understand when it requires help, and are motivated to help it. Results of a post-test animacy interview were consistent with this interpretation as children attributed affective, cognitive, and physiological characteristics to the robot. We conclude that the indiscriminate nature of young children's altruistic behaviour extends to humanoid robots. This finding has important theoretical and practical implications for the future development of social robots as well as for the study of children's prosocial behaviour.

Predictive coding theories of perception suggest the importance of constantly updated internal models of the world in predicting future sensory inputs. One implication of such models is that cortical regions whose function is to resolve particular stimulus attributes should also signal prediction violations with respect to those same stimulus attributes. Previously, through carefully designed experiments, we have demonstrated early-mid latency EEG/MEG prediction-error signals in the dorsal visual stream to violated expectations about stimulus orientation/trajectory, with localisations consistent with cortical areas processing motion and orientation. Here we extend those methods to simultaneously investigate the predictive processes in both dorsal and ventral visual streams. In this MEG study we employed a contextual trajectory paradigm that builds expectations using a series of image presentations. We created expectations about both face orientation and identity, either of which can subsequently be violated. Crucially this paradigm allows us to parametrically test double dissociations between these different types of violations. The study identified double dissociations across the type of violation in the dorsal and ventral visual streams, such that the right fusiform gyrus showed greater evidence of prediction-error signals to Identity violations than to Orientation violations, whereas the left angular gyrus and postcentral gyrus showed the opposite pattern of results. Our results suggest comparable processes for error checking and context updating in high-level expectations instantiated across both perceptual streams. Perceptual prediction-error signalling is initiated in regions associated with the processing of different stimulus properties.Significance StatementVisual processing occurs along ‘what’ and ‘where’ information streams that run, respectively along the ventral and dorsal surface of the posterior brain. Predictive coding models of perception imply prediction-error detection processes that are instantiated at the level where particular stimulus attributes are parsed. This implies that, for instance, when considering face stimuli, signals arising through violated expectations about the person identity of the stimulus should localise to the ventral stream, whereas signals arising through violated expectations about head orientation should localise to the dorsal stream. We test this in a magnetoencephalography source localisation study. The analysis confirmed that prediction-error signals to identity versus head-orientation occur with similar latency, but activate doubly-dissociated brain regions along ventral and dorsal processing streams.

Screen media occupy an increasing role in young children's play and learning environments. This paper advances the current discussion of the changing digital lives of children, with new insights of media use in the homes of Australian families (N = 406). Parents reported their child's technology ownership, engagement with traditional and new media, joint media engagement, as well as children's preferences and quantity of media use. From 2014 to 2017, cross‐sectional data were collected via media use questionnaire from families with a child 8 years of age or younger. Of all the media activities, children most frequently participated in reading (paper‐based or eBooks) and watching television. Children's touchscreen use indicated a variety of choices from the “digital toy box,” referring to the numerous apps available and their potential to serve as a medium for play. This data can inform policy and practice of researchers, educators and family engagement specialists and optimize early learning potential prior to formal schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Thatcher Illusion is generally discussed as a phenomenon related to face perception. Nonetheless, we show that compellingly strong Thatcher Effects can be elicited with nonface stimuli, provided that the stimulus set has a familiar standard configuration and a canonical view. Apparently, the Thatcher Illusion is not about faces, and nor is it about Thatcher. It just might, however, be about Britain.

Hamlin (2015) argued that the human capacity for social evaluation begins to emerge just a few months after birth. This claim derives from studies using unfulfilled goal scenarios, with infants as young as 3 months of age (see Hamlin, 2013). In a typical “manual choice” experiment, infants are habituated to multiple helping and hindering events. For example, a protagonist may first fail to achieve a goal such as climbing a hill. Then, another character pushes the protagonist either up the hill (the “Helper”) or back down the hill (the “Hinderer”). Following habituation, infants are presented with the Helper and Hinderer. By 4.5 months of age, infants more often choose to reach for the Helper than the Hinderer. These results are interpreted as evidence for an early developing sense of morality (Hamlin, 2013, 2014; c.f. Cowell and Decety, 2015; Salvadori et al., 2015; Scola et al., 2015). One potential issue with Hamlin et al.'s (2007) study, proposed by Scarf et al. (2012), is that the Helper events were confounded with an act of bouncing when the protagonist reached the hilltop. The current paper, however, showed that this was not the case, and that the direction of the protagonist's eye-gaze was the important factor. In this case, children chose the Helper over the Hinderer more often when the protagonist gazed at the hilltop. Hamlin argued that eye-gaze shows intent and that infants' understanding of intent allows them to correctly represent the behavior of the character as helping or hindering. Regardless of whether eye-gaze served as a cue to intention, it is not surprising that gaze could have profound effects on infants' preferences. Eye contact and following others' gaze is a crucial part of our daily interactions. This sensitivity to eyes appears to be highly adaptive (Baron-Cohen, 1995; Langten et al., 2000). Even at birth when infants have poor visual acuity and ocular control, they have a preference for open over closed eyes (Batki et al., 2000) and direct over averted gaze (Farroni et al., 2002, 2006). At 6 months of age, an important milestone occurs as infants begin to follow others' eye gaze to targets inside their current field of view (D'Entremont et al., 1997; Gredeback et al., 2008). The sensitivity to eye-gaze is assumed to have its roots in the evolution of the morphology of the human eye—which has an unusually high contrast between iris, sclera, and surrounding skin, enabling the detection of gaze direction from a great distance (Kobayashi and Kohshima, 1997, 2001; Tomasello et al., 2007). Although, the eye-gaze is clearly important in the task of Hamlin, it is not entirely clear why. One possibility is that eye-gaze helps the understanding of intentions. Such an explanation has been proposed by Baron-Cohen (1994, 1995) who suggested that humans have an eye-direction detector that detects eye-like stimuli and computes gaze direction. This mechanism in conjunction with an Intentionality Detector and Shared Attention Mechanism trigger the development of the Theory-of-Mind-Mechanism (ToMM), which allows mental states, such as people's intentions, to be inferred. The actual age at which intentions can be understood, however, is debated with both Carpenter et al. (1998) and Tomasello et al. (1993, 2005) suggesting that such a skill does not emerge until the age of one, which is older than the children in Hamlin's (2015) study. An alternative possibility is that infants prefer an event where someone “alive” is helped. In this case, infants may be responding to consistent animate action, regardless of any understanding of intentions (Tomasello et al., 2005). In particular, gaze may have been a cue for animacy in Hamlin's (2015) study when the climber's gaze was fixed on the hilltop (see Looser and Wheatley, 2010; Opfer and Gelman, 2010). Thus, infants may have preferred the Helper over the Hinderer in the “animate” condition, as only the Helper facilitated movements that were consistent with the previous event of ascending the first incline. If this is correct, then one would not need to assume infants of 6–11 months must understand the intentions of the puppet to do the task. Whether infants' preference for Helpers is based on an innate morality remains an open question. Nevertheless, Hamlin's (2015) experiments provided novel insights showing the importance of eye gaze for infants' choices. Because one has to understand the other's intention in order to act prosocially, future research addressing the question of whether young infants are truly able to infer from the Protagonist's gaze to its goals or if infants' choices are solely based on their predictions of future animate action would be of interest.

This set of three experiments assessed the influence of different psychophysical factors on the lateralization of the N170 event-related potential (ERP) component to words and faces. In all experiments, words elicited a left-lateralized N170, whereas faces elicited a right-lateralized or nonlateralized N170 depending on presentation conditions. Experiment 1 showed that lateralization for words (but not for faces) was influenced by spatial frequency. Experiment 2 showed that stimulus presentation time influenced N170 lateralization independently of spatial frequency composition. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that stimulus size and resolution did not influence N170 lateralization, but did influence N170 amplitude, albeit differentially for words and faces. These findings suggest that differential lateralization for words and faces, at least as measured by the N170, is influenced by spatial frequency (words), stimulus presentation time, and category.

The present research investigated 9.5-month-old infants’ use of spatial and featural information when determining the locations of object boundaries. Infants were shown displays for which spatial information (the relative positions of the boxes) and featural information (the colours and patterns of the boxes) led to either the same or different interpretations of the display. Infants’ interpretations of the displays were assessed by measuring their looking time at an event in which a screen passed either between or behind the objects. The results indicated that when the spatial information provided a clear interpretation of the display, infants used this interpretation even when featural information conflicted. In contrast, featural information was only used to interpret the display when spatial information did not allow a clear interpretation (1997a). These results are similar to those of Needham and Baillargeon in their indication that infants use multiple sources of information to segregate displays and that their strategies for determining which information to use are sensitive to characteristics of each source of information such as its

Summary After the birth of a second child many parents report that their first child appears to grow suddenly and substantially larger. Why is this? One possibility is that this is simply a contrast effect that stems from comparing the older sibling to the new baby: "everything looks big compared to a newborn". But, such reports could be the result of a far more interesting biopsychological phenomenon. More specifically, we hypothesized that human parents are subject to a kind of ‘baby illusion' under which they routinely misperceive their youngest child as smaller than he/she really is, regardless of the child's age. Then, when a new baby is born, this illusion ceases and the parent sees, for the first time, the erstwhile youngest at its true size. By this account the apparent growth results from the mismatch of the parent's now accurate perception with the stored memories of earlier misperceptions. Here we report that the baby illusion is a real and commonly occurring effect that recasts our understanding of how infantile features motivate parental caregiving [1].

The spatial representations of 4-month-old infants were examined in two experiments using a modified version of the visual expectation paradigm (VExP). The experiments were designed in order to determine what spatial frames of reference were available to infants for making anticipatory saccades. In Experiment 1, we found that infants most often used a retinocentric frame of reference that did not take into account their current eye position in making an anticipatory saccade. However, Experiment 2 revealed that under certain conditions infants are more likely to make anticipatory saccades consistent with a body- or object-centred frame of reference. The main difference between the two experiments was the degree to which the featural properties of the stimuli varied. The results shed light on the development of spatial representations for action in infancy.

Binaural beats are an auditory phenomenon that has been suggested to alter physiological and cognitive processes including vigilance and brainwave entrainment. Some personality traits measured by the NEO Five Factor Model have been found to alter entrainment using pulsing light stimuli, but as yet no studies have examined if this occurs using steady state presentation of binaural beats for a relatively short presentation of two minutes. This study aimed to examine if binaural beat stimulation altered vigilance or cortical frequencies and if personality traits were involved. Thirty-one participants were played binaural beat stimuli designed to elicit a response at either the Theta (7 Hz) or Beta (16 Hz) frequency bands while undertaking a zero-back vigilance task. EEG was recorded from a high-density electrode cap. No significant differences were found in vigilance or cortical frequency power during binaural beat stimulation compared to a white noise control period. Furthermore, no significant relationships were detected between the above and the Big Five personality traits. This suggests a short presentation of steady state binaural beats are not sufficient to alter vigilance or entrain cortical frequencies at the two bands examined and that certain personality traits were not more susceptible than others.

The apparent failure of infants to understand “object permanence” by reaching for hidden objects is perhaps the most striking and debated phenomenon in cognitive development. Of particular interest is the extent to which infants perceive and remember objects in a similar way to that of adults. Here we report two findings that clarify infant object processing. The first is that 6-mo-old infants are sensitive to visual cues to occlusion, particularly gradual deletion. The second finding is that oscillatory electroencephalogram activity recorded over right temporal channels is involved in object maintenance. This effect occurs only after disappearance in a manner consistent with occlusion and the object's continued existence.

This review pursues the idea that a dual visual system approach is fruitful for interpreting work on infant cognition. We provide examples from the visual perception and cognition literature demonstrating that the potential graspability of stimuli typically used in infant studies influence how these stimuli are processed by the infant brain. Specifically, we argue that small, local, familiar and moving stimuli are more likely to be processed by the dorsal (how or action) stream of visual processing. In contrast, larger, stationary objects are likely to be processed by the ventral (what or perception) stream. This analysis clarifies apparently conflicting results in the literature.