Working memory predicts children’s analogical reasoning

Simms, Nina; Frausel, Rebecca R.; Richland, Lindsey E.

doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2017.08.005

Cited by 64 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 55 publications

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“…These gains have been attributed to maturation of executive function (EF), including working memory capacity and inhibitory control, which allow children to modulate attention to relations versus object properties with greater control (Richland et al, ). Indeed, children's analogical skill is related to individual differences in EF (Blums, Belsky, Grimm, & Chen, ; Richland & Burchinal, ; Simms, Frausel, & Richland, ). Unlike increases in relational domain knowledge, gains in EF should support general, content–independent improvements in analogical reasoning; yet these gains should be slower and less malleable.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generating Relations Elicits a Relational Mindset in Children

Simms

Richland

2019

Cognitive Science

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Relational reasoning is a hallmark of human higher cognition and creativity, yet it is notoriously difficult to encourage in abstract tasks, even in adults. Generally, young children initially focus more on objects, but with age become more focused on relations. While prerequisite knowledge and cognitive resource maturation partially explains this pattern, here we propose a new facet important for children's relational reasoning development: a general orientation to relational information, or a relational mindset. We demonstrate that a relational mindset can be elicited, even in 4‐year‐old children, yielding greater than expected spontaneous attention to relations. Children either generated or listened to an experimenter state the relationships between objects in a set of formal analogy problems, and then in a second task, selected object or relational matches according to their preference. Children tended to make object mappings, but those who generated relations on the first task selected relational matches more often on the second task, signaling that relational attention is malleable even in young children.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Generating Relations Elicits a Relational Mindset in Children

Simms

Richland

2019

Cognitive Science

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“…Children’s cognitive-control resources have been implicated as one source of individual differences in relational representation and reasoning (see Morrison et al, 2004 ; Viskontas et al, 2004 ; Simms et al, 2018 ). Also described as executive function (EF) ( Diamond, 2013 ), these resources refer to the ability to use selective attention to manipulate the contents of working memory, and are believed to include a variety of functions including inhibitory control (IC), updating, and shifting ( Miyake et al, 2000 ; Banich, 2009 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, a full theory of relational reasoning development must go beyond performance accuracy to provide a mechanism for developmental change over time. There is reason to believe that cognitive-control resources not only predict performance at a single time point (see Simms et al, 2018 ), but also may impact children’s growth in reasoning skill. An analysis of data from a large-scale longitudinal study found that children’s performance at school entry on an IC task (Children’s Stroop; Gerstadt et al, 1994 ), and an EF task (Tower of Hanoi) both predicted distinct variance in children’s analogical skill, and more interestingly, their growth in analogical skill from school entry to adolescence ( Richland and Burchinal, 2013 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual Differences in Relational Learning and Analogical Reasoning: A Computational Model of Longitudinal Change

2018

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Children’s cognitive control and knowledge at school entry predict growth rates in analogical reasoning skill over time; however, the mechanisms by which these factors interact and impact learning are unclear. We propose that inhibitory control (IC) is critical for developing both the relational representations necessary to reason and the ability to use these representations in complex problem solving. We evaluate this hypothesis using computational simulations in a model of analogical thinking, Discovery of Relations by Analogy/Learning and Inference with Schemas and Analogy (DORA/LISA; Doumas et al., 2008). Longitudinal data from children who solved geometric analogy problems repeatedly over 6 months show three distinct learning trajectories though all gained somewhat: analogical reasoners throughout, non-analogical reasoners throughout, and transitional – those who start non-analogical and grew to be analogical. Varying the base level of top-down lateral inhibition in DORA affected the model’s ability to learn relational representations, which, in conjunction with inhibition levels used in LISA during reasoning, simulated accuracy rates and error types seen in the three different learning trajectories. These simulations suggest that IC may not only impact reasoning ability but may also shape the ability to acquire relational knowledge given reasoning opportunities.

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“…Inhibitory control allows an individual to inhibit more salient, featural match responses, and select a less salient, but correct, relational match (e.g., Viskontas et al, 2004;Richland et al, 2006). Working memory allows an individual to simultaneously process multiple contexts and pieces of information present in an analogy (e.g., Gick and Holyoak, 1980;Halford, 1993;Simms et al, 2018). Due to the protracted development of these cognitive capacities, analogical reasoning similarly develops gradually over time, with initial stages presenting in children as young as 3-5 years old and maturing into adolescence (e.g., Alexander et al, 1987;Goswami and Brown, 1989;Rattermann and Gentner, 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Analogical Reasoning With Co-speech Gesture Shows Children Where to Look, but Only Boosts Learning for Some

Guarino¹,

Wakefield²

2020

Front. Psychol.

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In general, we know that gesture accompanying spoken instruction can help children learn. The present study was conducted to better understand how gesture can support children's comprehension of spoken instruction and whether the benefit of teaching though speech and gesture over spoken instruction alone depends on differences in cognitive profile-prior knowledge children have that is related to a to-be-learned concept. To answer this question, we explored the impact of gesture instruction on children's analogical reasoning ability. Children between the ages of 4 and 11 years solved scene analogy problems before and after speech alone or speech and gesture instruction while their visual attention was monitored. Our behavioral results suggest a marginal benefit of gesture instruction over speech alone, but only 5-year-old children showed a distinct advantage from speech + gesture instruction when solving the postinstruction trial, suggesting that at this age, children have the cognitive profile in place to utilize the added support of gesture. Furthermore, while speech + gesture instruction facilitated effective visual attention during instruction, directing attention away from featural matches and toward relational information was pivotal for younger children's success post instruction. We consider how these results contribute to the gesture-forlearning literature and consider how the nuanced impact of gesture is informative for educators teaching tasks of analogy in the classroom.

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Working memory predicts children’s analogical reasoning

Cited by 64 publications

References 55 publications

Generating Relations Elicits a Relational Mindset in Children

Generating Relations Elicits a Relational Mindset in Children

Individual Differences in Relational Learning and Analogical Reasoning: A Computational Model of Longitudinal Change

Teaching Analogical Reasoning With Co-speech Gesture Shows Children Where to Look, but Only Boosts Learning for Some

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