The End-State Comfort Effect in Young Children

Abstract

The end-state comfort effect has been observed in recent studies of grip selection in adults. The present study investigated whether young children also exhibit sensitivity to end-state comfort. The task was to pick up an overturned cup from a table, turn the cup right side up, and pour water into it. Two age groups (N = 20 per group) were studied: preschool children (2-3 years old), and kindergarten students (5-6 years old). Each child performed three videotaped trials of the task. Only 11 of the 40 children exhibited the end-state comfort effect, and there were no differences between age groups. Results revealed the emergence of five different performance patterns, none of which were consistent with sensitivity to end-state comfort. The findings have implications for the advance planning of manual control in young children.

Anticipatory action planning increases from 3 to 10years of age in typically developing children

“…In children, however, research on the development of the end-state comfort effect is limited, and the results are equivocal. In two studies, no developmental effect was found in children aged 2 to 6 years (Adalbjornsson, Fischman, & Rudisill, 2008;Manoel & Moreira, 2005). Adalbjornsson et al (2008) asked two groups of children (aged 2-3 and 5-6 years) to pick up a cup that was placed upside down.…”

The continuous end-state comfort effect: weighted integration of multiple biases

“…The basic end-state comfort paradigm has been applied to assess motor planning in different age groups (e.g. Adalbjornsson et al 2008;Thibaut and Toussaint 2010), with clinical populations (e.g. Hughes 1996;Steenbergen et al 2000;van Swieten et al 2010), in monkeys (Chapman et al 2010;Weiss et al 2007), and also for different continuous tasks (Cohen and Rosenbaum 2004;Schütz et al in press;Zhang and Rosenbaum 2008).…”

Prospective and retrospective effects in human motor control: planning grasps for object rotation and translation

“…Two other studies showed that the end-state comfort eVect is manifested in nonhuman animals (Chapman, Weiss, & Rosenbaum, 2010;Weiss, Wark, & Rosenbaum, 2007). Several studies also showed a marked developmental trend for the end-state comfort eVect, with the eVect not taking hold until 9 years of age for typically developing children (Adalbjornsson, Fischman, & Rudisill, 2008;Thibaut & Toussaint, 2010;van Swieten et al, 2010), whereas the end-state comfort eVect is compromised in children with autism (Hughes, 1996), in children with developmental coordination disorder (van Swieten et al, 2010), and in adults with cerebral palsy (Steenbergen, Hulstijn, & Dortmans, 2000). For reviews, see Rosenbaum (2010) and Rosenbaum, Cohen, Meulenbroek, and Vaughan (2006).…”