Working memory tasks designed for children usually present trials in order of ascending difficulty, with testing discontinued when the child fails a particular level. Unfortunately, this procedure comes with a number of issues, such as decreased engagement from high-ability children, vulnerability of the scores to temporary mind-wandering, and large between-subjects variations in number of trials, testing time, and proactive interference. To circumvent these problems, the goal of the present study was to demonstrate the feasibility of assessing working memory using an adaptive testing procedure. The principle of adaptive testing is to dynamically adjust the level of difficulty as the task progresses to match the participant's ability. We used this method to develop an adaptive complex span task (the ACCES) comprising verbal and visuo-spatial subtests. The task presents a fixed number of trials to all participants, allows for partial credit scoring, and can be used with children regardless of ability level. The ACCES demonstrated satisfying psychometric properties in a sample of 268 children aged 8-13 years, confirming the feasibility of using adaptive tasks to measure working memory capacity in children. A free-to-use implementation of the ACCES is provided.

Improvisational theater (improv) is supposed to have an impact on cognitive processes (divergent thinking, flexibility, language, memory, problem solving, and co-construction), academic performance, and everyday life in many ways. However, little research studied on the psychological impact of improv, with some results highlighting a divergent thinking enhancement in children and adults, but not with teenagers, one of the most important age groups to practice improv. Therefore, this study aims to assess divergent thinking for middle school students before and after an 11-weeks session compared to a control group with a sport practice. The Alternative Uses Task (AUT) was used before and after the session for both groups to evaluate divergent thinking. The improv group had better performance in originality, flexibility and gave less prototypical items after the improv sessions compared to before, while the control group performance was similar before and after. Our results suggest that improv helps teenagers’ divergent thinking to improve, not only with experimental games in the lab context but also after ecological sessions. We urge scientists to study in depth psychological impacts of improvisational theater and applied improvisation, for a better understanding of improv and as a model to study embodied cognition.

Intellectual giftedness is usually defined in terms of having a very high Intellectual Quotient (IQ). The intellectual capacity is assessed by a standardized test such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC). However, the identification of intellectually gifted children (IGC) often remains time-consuming. A short-form WISC can be used as a screening instrument. The practitioners and researchers in this field can then make a more in-depth evaluation of the IGC's cognitive and socioemotional characteristics if needed. The aim of our study is thus to determine the best short tests, in terms of their psychometric qualities, for the identification of IGC. The current study is composed of three-step analyses. Firstly, we created nine IQs short forms (IQSF) with 2-subtests, and nine IQSF with 4-subtests from the WISC-IV (Wechsler, 2005). Secondly, we estimated psychometric parameters (i.e., reliability and validity) from empirical and simulated dataset with WISC-IV. The difference in the estimation of psychometric qualities of each IQSF from the simulated data is very close to those derived from empirical data. We thus selected the three best IQSF based on these psychometrics parameters estimated from simulated datasets. For each selected short form of the WISC-IV, we estimated the screening quality in our sample of IGC. Thirdly, we created IQSF with 2- and 4-subtests from the WISC-V (Wechsler, 2016) with simulated dataset. We then highlighted the three best short forms of WISC-V based on the estimated psychometric parameters. The results are interpreted in terms of validity, reliability and screening quality of IGC. In spite of the important changes in the WISC-V, our findings show that the 2-subtest form, Similitaries + Matrix Reasoning, and 4-subtest form, Similitaries + Vocabulary + Matrix Reasoning + Block Design, are the most efficient to identify the IGC at the two recent versions of Wechsler scales. Finally, we discuss the advantages and drawbacks of a brief assessment of intellectual aptitudes for the identification of the IGC.

Eye-tracking studies have revealed a specific visual exploration style characterizing individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of stimulus type (static vs. dynamic) on visual exploration in children with ASD. Twenty-eight children with ASD, 28 children matched for developmental communication age, and 28 children matched for chronological age watched a video and a series of photos involving the same joint attention scene. For each stimulus, areas of interest (AOI) were determined based on Voronoi diagrams, which were defined around participants' fixation densities, defined by the mean shift algorithm. To analyze the eye-tracking data on visual exploration, we used a method for creating AOI a posteriori, based on participants' actual fixations. The results showed the value of both kinds of stimuli. The photos allowed for the identification of more precise AOI and showed similarities in exploration between ASD and typical children. On the other hand, video revealed that, among ASD children only, there are few differences in the way they look at the target depending on the deictic cue used. This raises questions regarding their understanding of a joint attention bid recorded on a video. Finally, whatever the stimulus, pointing seems to be the most important element for children looking at the target.

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Intellectually gifted children tend to demonstrate especially high working memory capacity, an ability that holds a critical role in intellectual functioning. What could explain the differences in working memory performance between intellectually gifted and non-gifted children? We investigated this issue by measuring working memory capacity with complex spans in a sample of 55 gifted and 55 nongifted children. Based on prior studies, we expected the higher working memory capacity of intellectually gifted children to be driven by more effective executive control, as measured with the Attention Network Test. The findings confirmed that intellectually gifted children had higher working memory capacity than typical children, as well as more effective executive attention. Surprisingly, however, working memory differences between groups were not mediated by differences in executive attention. Instead, differences in processing time in the working memory task contributed to the high working memory capacity of gifted children.

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