Children's Internal Representations Research Articles

Exploring Children's representations of work: A review investigating content and influences

Middle childhood has been identified as a critical period regarding the exploration and construction of the self, with strong implications for future vocational choices and occupational trajectories. Due to a shortage of both theoretical models and empirical data, a knowledge gap remains as regards children's perceptions and understandings of the concept of work between the ages of 5–8, and the differential variables influencing these representations. This review aims to fill this gap by providing relevant information with respect to the investigation of the content of children's representations of work, as well as the factors influencing them. Considering the lack of papers covering this topic, this article approaches the subject through adjacent angles such as adult and adolescent representations of work, children's representations of occupations, and children's vocational preferences or career development. A theoretical model of children's mental representations of work is presented, and general methodological avenues are proposed to pursue further investigation on this research topic.

Multidimensional mental representations of natural environment among Chinese preadolescents via draw‐and‐write mapping

Abstract The mental associations that children have with the natural environment can be referred to as their natural representations. These representations encompass a blend of shared consensus and individual differences, playing a pivotal role in shaping human relationships with nature and influencing attitudes and behaviours. However, comprehending children's natural representations, particularly among preadolescents with limited verbal narrative abilities, remains a challenge. To address this challenge, we conducted a study employing a draw‐and‐write task and a questionnaire survey. Our investigation aimed to understand how the level of nature experiences and demographic variables affects the multidimensional representations of nature among preadolescents (aged 9–12) in China. Specifically, we examined the impacts of direct, indirect and vicarious nature experiences on their natural representations. These representations included dimensions such as the level of wildness, cognitive complexity, extent of elaboration, expression of emotion and representation style. These dimensions were based on literature review and supported by empirical data collected from children's drawings. Our findings showed that children's drawings of nature not only share similarities but also display significant variations. Most of their drawings include natural components, such as living and non‐living elements, while a notable proportion of drawings depicts human activities. Interestingly, we observed notable differences in the level of wildness, elaboration and representation style among preadolescents from different regions. Additionally, we found that vicarious nature experiences have a significant positive impact on the cognitive complexity, extent of elaboration and positive emotional expression in children's drawings, while direct nature experiences also have a weaker but still significant positive effect on the elaboration. Moreover, female students exhibit greater proficiency in these three aspects compared to their male counterparts. The study highlights the significance of the surrounding environment and nature experiences, especially vicarious nature experience, in shaping the natural representations of preadolescents. Using draw‐and‐write mapping is recommended as a valuable approach to understanding the children's mental representations of the natural environment. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Turkish preschool children's representations of friendship: Story completion method adaptation study

In the preschool period, children's friendships considered a crucial developmental task. Hence, it is critical to evaluate children's mental representations of friendships during this period. This study aims to evaluate the validity and reliability of the story completion protocol designed to evaluate preschool children's mental representations of their friendships in school settings for Turkish children. The Preschool Friendship Story Completion Task consists of six stories, one of which is warming. The stories were translated into Turkish by researchers and Turkish-English language experts, and expert opinion was taken for Turkish-English compatibility. Two pilot studies were conducted to evaluate children's participation in the task and following the instructions. Seventy children attending pre-school education institutions participated in the study. Children are asked to complete the unfinished stories presented through a scene and figures. The coders evaluated the video-recorded children's narratives using a detailed rating system. In addition, teachers evaluated the social skills and problem behaviors of children. The results affirmed that the friendship dimensions were conceptually related to each other and the inter-coder reliability was high. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the story completion method on the basis of the narratives of children is a comprehensive and developmentally appropriate way to assess children's friendships.

Same topic, different genre: Elementary school children's mental representations of information embedded in narrative and expository texts

Using a sentence recognition task, we investigated whether elementary school children's (N = 92; Mage = 9.3 years, SD = 1.1 years) memory of the text surface, the textbase, and the situation model differed depending on whether the same information was embedded in an expository or a narrative text. Previous research with children that used narrative and expository texts dealing with different topics indicated beneficial effects narrative over expository texts regarding various indicators of processing on the levels of the textbase and the situation model. In contrast, our results did not indicate differences between narrative and expository texts for any of the levels of representation. Thus, the role of text topic in studies investigating the effect of genre on text comprehension should be investigated further.

Young Children's Representation of Locations in a Series: A Front-Back Representation or an Ordinal Representation?

Previous research has found that 3–5-year-old children could encode and retrieve a target location in a two-location series. In a paradigm of running two symmetrical railcars on a circular track, the study suggested that children used front-back array to help coding. That is, children at this age code the railcar running in the front of another as “the location in the front” and the railcar running in the back of another as “the location in the back.” However, the children’s success could be attributed to an alternative interpretation; using an ordinal representation to encode the location in front as the first with the other as the second. The current study used a four-location series to examine the children’s mental representation. Three- to five-year-old children participated in a hide-and-seek game to remember a target location out of four locations that moved in a series. The results showed salient individual differences in children’s representation, and their performance improved as the representation progressed. An ordinal representation supported the precise encoding of each location, while a vague front-back representation and a clearer front-middle-back representation led to different performance.

Intimate partner violence and maltreated preschoolers' internal representations of conflict.

Family violence, including intimate partner violence (IPV) and child maltreatment, has detrimental consequences across the life span. Robust evidence from families experiencing relatively normative conflict demonstrates the central role of children's internal representations, or beliefs and expectations of relationships, on children's adjustment. The current investigation examines children's implicit internal representations of interadult conflict among families experiencing IPV and child maltreatment. Maltreated (n = 132) and nonmaltreated (n = 82) preschoolers (Mage = 4.93 years, SD = 1.11) completed a narrative story-stem completion task in which they were asked to generate narrative endings to interadult conflicts. Narratives were coded for constructive conflict resolutions, dysregulated destructive behaviors, and the proliferation of interadult aggression toward the child. Mothers reported the frequency of IPV and constructive conflict between themselves and their partners within the past year. The potential additive and interactive effects of IPV, constructive conflict, and child maltreatment on children's internal representations of conflict behaviors were examined. The narratives of maltreated children depicted more constructively resolved conflict as interadult constructive conflict tactics increased. Maltreated and nonmaltreated children did not differ in their representations of conflict resolution at high levels of constructive conflict tactics. Maltreatment was positively associated with representations of dysregulated destructive behaviors and conflict spread to the parent-child relationship. IPV was positively associated with representations of conflict spread. Constructive conflict, in turn, was negatively associated with conflict spread. The findings highlight the importance of the multiple expressions of family conflict and violence on children's implicit internal representations of conflict. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

A comparative evaluation of dissimilarity-based and model-based clustering in science education research: the case of children's mental models of the Earth

In the present work, two different classification methods, a dissimilarity-based clustering approach (DBC) and the model-based latent class analysis (LCA), were used to analyse responses to a questionnaire designed to measure children's mental representation of the Earth. It contributes to an ongoing debate in cognitive psychology and science education research between two antagonistic theories on the nature of children's knowledge, that is, the coherent versus fragmented knowledge hypothesis. Methodology-wise the problem concerns the classification of response patterns into distinct clusters, which correspond to specific hypothesised mental models. DBC employs the partitioning around medoids (PAM) approach and selects the final cluster solution based on average silhouette width, cluster stability and interpretability. LCA, a model-based clustering method achieves a taxonomy by employing the conditional probabilities of responses. Initially, a brief presentation and comparison of the two methods is provided, while issues on clustering philosophies are discussed. Both PAM and LCA attained to detect merely the cluster which corresponds to the coherent scientific model and an artificial segment added on purpose in the empirical data. The two methods, despite the obvious deviations in cluster-membership assignment, finally provide sound findings as far as hypotheses tested, by converging to identical conclusions.

A comparative evaluation of dissimilarity-based and model-based clustering in science education research: the case of children's mental models of the Earth

In the present work, two different classification methods, a dissimilarity-based clustering approach (DBC) and the model-based latent class analysis (LCA), were used to analyse responses to a questionnaire designed to measure children's mental representation of the Earth. It contributes to an ongoing debate in cognitive psychology and science education research between two antagonistic theories on the nature of children's knowledge, that is, the coherent versus fragmented knowledge hypothesis. Methodology-wise the problem concerns the classification of response patterns into distinct clusters, which correspond to specific hypothesised mental models. DBC employs the partitioning around medoids (PAM) approach and selects the final cluster solution based on average silhouette width, cluster stability and interpretability. LCA, a model-based clustering method achieves a taxonomy by employing the conditional probabilities of responses. Initially, a brief presentation and comparison of the two methods is provided, while issues on clustering philosophies are discussed. Both PAM and LCA attained to detect merely the cluster which corresponds to the coherent scientific model and an artificial segment added on purpose in the empirical data. The two methods, despite the obvious deviations in cluster-membership assignment, finally provide sound findings as far as hypotheses tested, by converging to identical conclusions.

Early relational experience: A foundation for the unfolding dynamics of parent-child socialization.

Psychologists have long tried to understand why trajectories of socialization in individual parent-child dyads can be distinct, leading to adaptive or maladaptive developmental outcomes. In this article, we elucidate origins of those differences by examining the subtle yet enduring implications of early parent-child relationships in longitudinal studies of low- and high-risk families, using correlational and experimental designs, and multiple measures. Those relationships are key for socialization because they can alter cascades from children's biologically based difficult temperament to parents' negative control to negative children's outcomes, as demonstrated by social-learning theories. We suggest that those cascades unfold only in parent-child dyads whose early relationships lack positive mutuality and security. Such relationships set the tone for adversarial cascades. In contrast, early mutually positive, secure relationships initiate cooperative, effective socialization and defuse risks of negative cascades. Parents' and children's internal representations of each other may explain how such divergent sequelae unfold.

Illustration of Step-Wise Latent Class Modeling With Covariates and Taxometric Analysis in Research Probing Children's Mental Models in Learning Sciences.

This paper illustrates two psychometric methods, latent class analysis (LCA) and taxometric analysis (TA) using empirical data from research probing children's mental representation in science learning. LCA is used to obtain a typology based on observed variables and to further investigate how the encountered classes might be related to external variables, where the effectiveness of classification process and the unbiased estimations of parameters become the main concern. In the step-wise LCA, the class membership is assigned and subsequently its relationship with covariates is established. This leading-edge modeling approach suffers from severe downward-biased estimations. The illustration of LCA is focused on alternative bias correction approaches and demonstrates the effect of modal and proportional class-membership assignment along with BCH and ML correction procedures. The illustration of LCA is presented with three covariates, which are psychometric variables operationalizing formal reasoning, divergent thinking and field dependence-independence, respectively. Moreover, taxometric analysis, a method designed to detect the type of the latent structural model, categorical or dimensional, is introduced, along with the relevant basic concepts and tools. TA was applied complementarily in the same data sets to answer the fundamental hypothesis about children's naïve knowledge on the matters under study and it comprises an additional asset in building theory which is fundamental for educational practices. Taxometric analysis provided results that were ambiguous as far as the type of the latent structure. This finding initiates further discussion and sets a problematization within this framework rethinking fundamental assumptions and epistemological issues.

Spatial-numerical associations in first-graders: evidence from a manual-pointing task.

The current study investigated whether children's mental representations of numbers are organized spatially at the onset of formal schooling using a manual-pointing task. First-graders (N=77) saw four numbers (1, 3, 7, 9) presented randomly in four spatial positions (extreme left, left, right, extreme right) on a touch screen. In a Go/No-Go task, children were asked to press the appearing numbers as fast and accurately as possible, but only when the numbers were "smaller" (or "larger" in a different block) than 5. Results indicated that response times were significantly affected by the spatial position in which the different numbers were presented. Response times for small numbers (1 and 3) increased and response times for large numbers (7 and 9) decreased, the more they were presented towards the right side of the screen. These findings suggested that first-graders spontaneously employed a spatial number representation that was oriented from left to right. Furthermore, this left-to-right organization could not be easily changed by priming a different direction. Our findings indicate that even young children map numbers continuously onto space.

The Multivariate Roles of Family Instability and Interparental Conflict in Predicting Children's Representations of Insecurity in the Family System and Early School Adjustment Problems.

This study examined the moderating role of family instability in relations involving destructive interparental conflict, children's internal representations of insecurity in the family system, and their early school maladjustment. Two hundred forty-three preschool children (M age=4.60years; 56% girls) and their families participated in this multi-method (i.e., observations, structured interview, surveys) multi-informant (i.e., observer, parent, teacher), longitudinal study. Findings indicated that the mediational role of children's insecure family representations in the pathway between destructive interparental conflict and children's adjustment problems varied significantly depending on the level of family instability. Interparental conflict was specifically associated with insecure family representations only under conditions of low family instability. In supporting the role of family instability as a vulnerable-stable risk factor, follow up analyses revealed that children's concerns about security in the family were uniformly high under conditions of heightened instability regardless of their level of exposure to interparental conflict.

Do Young Children's Representations of Discipline and Empathy Moderate the Effects of Punishment on Emotion Regulation?

AbstractThis study examined whether children's representations of parenting (perceptions of authoritative discipline and empathy) moderated the association between harsh punishment—including corporal punishment (CP) and verbal punishment (VP)—and children's emotion regulation at the age of five years. Participants were 559 low‐income mother‐child dyads. Maternal self‐reports and home observations were used to measure punishment. Children's representations were assessed using the MacArthur Story Stem Battery. Children's emotion regulation was assessed by observer rating via the Leiter International Performance Scale–Revised. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that children's authoritative disciplinary representations moderated the effects of both VP and CP on children's emotion regulation. Empathic representations moderated the effects of VP only on children's emotion regulation. The current findings highlight the role of children's internal representations as potential protective factors in the context of harsher forms of punishment.

Associations Between Attachment Security and Social Competence in Preschool Children

Attachment theorists suggest that attachment security with parents supports the quality of social adaptation in peer groups during early childhood, and numerous studies supporting this conjecture have been published. Most of these studies used enacted representations rather than mental representations of attachment security, and most studies examining mental representations used adult (parent or teacher) ratings of peer-group adaptation. Our study tested relations between preschool children's (N = 147; age 48-69 months) mental representations of attachment by using the Attachment Story Completion Task and child-level indicators of social competence based on direct observations and sociometric interviews. General intelligence tests were administered to control for effects of developmental level on child narrative production. Analyses revealed positive, significant associations between attachment measures and all social competence composites. Children with more secure attachment representations were more socially engaged and more likely to exhibit social, emotional, and cognitive skills that contribute to peer acceptance. Results support the hypothesis that attachment security is a foundational support for peer social competence.

Associations Between Attachment Security and Social Competence in Preschool Children

Attachment theorists suggest that attachment security with parents supports the quality of social adaptation in peer groups during early childhood, and numerous studies supporting this conjecture have been published. Most of these studies used enacted representations rather than mental representations of attachment security, and most studies examining mental representations used adult (parent or teacher) ratings of peer-group adaptation. Our study tested relations between preschool children's ( N = 147; age 48-69 months) mental representations of attachment by using the Attachment Story Completion Task and child-level indicators of social competence based on direct observations and sociometric interviews. General intelligence tests were administered to control for effects of developmental level on child narrative production. Analyses revealed positive, significant associations between attachment measures and all social competence composites. Children with more secure attachment representations were more socially engaged and more likely to exhibit social, emotional, and cognitive skills that contribute to peer acceptance. Results support the hypothesis that attachment security is a foundational support for peer social competence.

A longitudinal analysis of estimation, counting skills, and mathematical ability across the first school year.

In response to claims that the quality (and in particular linearity) of children's mental representation of number acts as a constraint on number development, we carried out a longitudinal assessment of the relationships between number line estimation, counting, and mathematical abilities. Ninety-nine 5-year-olds were tested on 4 occasions at 3 monthly intervals. Correlations between the 3 types of ability were evident, but while the quality of children's estimations changed over time and performance on the mathematical tasks improved over the same period, changes in one were not associated with changes in the other. In contrast to the earlier claims that the linearity of number representation is potentially a unique contributor to children's mathematical development, the data suggest that this variable is not significantly privileged in its impact over and above simple procedural number skills. We propose that both early arithmetic success and estimating skill are bound closely to developments in counting ability.

Spatial representations of numbers and letters in children

Different lines of evidence suggest that children's mental representations of numbers are spatially organized in form of a mental number line. It is, however, still unclear whether a spatial organization is specific for the numerical domain or also applies to other ordinal sequences in children. In the present study, children (n = 129) aged 8–9 years were asked to indicate the midpoint of lines flanked by task-irrelevant digits or letters. We found that the localization of the midpoint was systematically biased toward the larger digit. A similar, but less pronounced, effect was detected for letters with spatial biases toward the letter succeeding in the alphabet. Instead of assuming domain-specific forms of spatial representations, we suggest that ordinal information expressing relations between different items of a sequence might be spatially coded in children, whereby numbers seem to convey this kind of information in the most salient way.

Multiple Representations in Number Line Estimation: A Developmental Shift or Classes of Representations?

Children's estimation patterns on a number line estimation task may provide information about the mental representation of the magnitude of numbers. Siegler and his colleagues concluded that children's mental representations shift from a logarithmic-ruler representation to a linear-ruler representation. However, there are important methodological issues with respect to their number-line studies that threaten the validity of the conclusions. We discuss these methodological issues and propose an alternative method to analyze estimation data. One hundred nineteen children from kindergarten, first, and second grade performed a number-line estimation task in which they had to estimate the position of 30 numbers on a 0-to-100 number line. The results supported the hypothesis that children show various kinds of estimation patterns. Five classes of children were distinguished, which were characterized by different estimation patterns. A remarkable result was that the logarithmic-ruler representation was not found. Although young children were more likely to show overestimation of small numbers than older children, this developmental trend was small and not significant.

Socio-cultural effects on children's initiation of joint attention.

Exchanging gazes with a social partner in response to an event in the environment is considered an effective means to direct attention, share affective experiences, and highlight a target in the environment. This behavior appears during infancy and plays an important role in children's learning and in shaping their socio-emotional development. It has been suggested that cultural values of the community affect socio-emotional development through attentional dynamics of social reference (Rogoff et al., 1993). Maturational processes of brain-circuits have been found to mediate socio-cultural learning and the behavioral manifestation of cultural norms starting at preschool age (Nelson and Guyer, 2011). The aim of the current study was to investigate the relations between cultural ecology levels and children's joint attention (JA). Initiation of JA bids was studied empirically as a function of the level of social load of the target toy (3 levels), the community level of adherence to traditional values (3 levels), parental education (2 levels), and gender. Sixty-two kindergarten aged children were enrolled in a structured toy-exploration task, during which they were presented with toys of various social loads, with social agents (i.e., mother and experimenter) present nearby, and non-social distracters presented intermittently. Measurements included the child's number of JA bids and the extent of positive affect. Analysis of variance indicated that the child's initiation of JA toward the social partner was affected by all levels of cultural ecology (i.e., toy's social load, adherence to tradition values, parental education, gender), thus supporting the study's hypotheses. The effects were such that overall, children, particularly girls' JA initiation was augmented in social toys and moderated by the socio-cultural variables. These results suggest that cultural ecology is related to children's JA, thereby scaffolding initiation of social sharing cues between children and adults. JA plays a role in adjusting children's internal representations of their respective ecological environment.

Preschool children's mental representations of attachment: antecedents in their secure base behaviors and maternal attachment scripts

This study examined the antecedents of preschool age children's mental representations of attachment, assessed using the Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT). Antecedent predictors were maternal attachment scripts, assessed using the Attachment Script Assessment (ASA), and the child's secure base behaviors, assessed using the Attachment Q-Set (AQS). Participants were 121 mothers and their preschool children assessed in three samples (Portuguese sample, n = 31; US Midwestern sample, n = 38; US Southeastern sample, n = 52). AQS and ASA assessments were completed approximately 1.5 years before the ASCT data were collected. No cross-sample contrasts for the attachment variables were significant. Correlations and structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that the three attachment measures were significantly associated and that both maternal secure base script knowledge and children's secure base behaviors (AQS) were uniquely and significantly associated with children's mental representations of attachment (ASCT). A test of the indirect effect between maternal scripts and child representations through children's secure base behaviors was not significant.