Training kindergarten children on learning from their mistakes.

This study investigated whether feedback on their errors and speed improves kindergarten children's performance in an executive function (EF) task. Children from Switzerland (N = 213, 49% female, M = 6.4 years) were tested in the Hearts and Flowers task pre- and post-training and trained either on a variant of this task with (n = 71) or without feedback (n = 72), or on a control learning task (n = 70).

Monitoring and control processes within executive functions: Is post-error slowing related to pre-error speeding in children?

Both pre-error speeding and post-error slowing reflect monitoring and control strategies. Post-error slowing is relatively well-established in children, whereas pre-error speeding is much less studied. Here we investigated (a) whether kindergarten and first-grade children show pre-error speeding in a cognitive control task (Hearts and Flowers) and, if so, (b) whether post-error slowing is associated with pre-error speeding.

Duration of face mask exposure matters: evidence from Swiss and Brazilian kindergartners' ability to recognise emotions.

Wearing facial masks became a common practice worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated (1) whether facial masks that cover adult faces affect 4- to 6-year-old children's recognition of emotions in those faces and (2) whether the duration of children's exposure to masks is associated with emotion recognition. We tested children from Switzerland (= 38) and Brazil (= 41).

What's the point? Infants' and adults' perception of different pointing gestures.

Adults and infants as young as 4 months old orient to pointing gestures. Although adults are shown to orient faster to index-finger pointing than other hand shapes, it is unknown whether hand shapes influence infants' perception of pointing. In this study, we used a spatial cueing paradigm on an eye tracker to investigate whether and to what extent adults and 12-month-old infants orient their attention in the direction of pointing gestures with different hand shapes: index finger, whole hand, and pinky finger.

Correlates of infant pointing frequency in the first year.

This study examines the emergence of concurrent correlates of infant pointing frequency with the aim of contributing to its ontogenetic theories. We measured monthly from 8 to 12 months infants' (N = 56) index-finger pointing frequency along with several candidate correlates: (1) family socioeconomic status (SES), (2) mothers' pointing production, and (3) infants' point following to targets in front of and behind them. Results revealed that (1) infants increased their pointing frequency across age, but high-SES infants had a steeper increase, and a higher pointing frequency than low-SES infants from 10 months onward, (2) maternal pointing frequency was not associated with infant pointing frequency at any age, (3) infants' point following abilities to targets behind their visual fields was positively associated with their pointing frequency at 12 months, after pointing had already emerged around 10 months.