Evidence map›Paper›PMID 35639714›Full record

ArticlePloS one2022

Spontaneous discovery of novel task solutions in children.

Nicolas W Schuck, Amy X Li, Dorit Wenke, Destina S Ay-Bryson, Anika T Loewe, Robert Gaschler, Yee Lee Shing

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PloS one, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
6citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

6 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Nicolas W SchuckMax Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.ORCID 0000-0002-0150-8776
Amy X LiSchool of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
Dorit WenkePFH Private University of Applied Sciences, Göttingen, Germany.
Destina S Ay-BrysonDepartment of Rehabilitation Sciences, Humboldt University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Anika T LoeweMax Planck Research Group NeuroCode, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
Robert GaschlerSchool of Psychology, FernUniversität Hagen, Hagen, Germany.
Yee Lee ShingInstitute of Psychology, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Children often perform worse than adults on tasks that require focused attention. While this is commonly regarded as a sign of incomplete cognitive development, a broader attentional focus could also endow children with the ability to find novel solutions to a given task. To test this idea, we investigated children's ability to discover and use novel aspects of the environment that allowed them to improve their decision-making strategy. Participants were given a simple choice task in which the possibility of strategy improvement was neither mentioned by instructions nor encouraged by explicit error feedback. Among 47 children (8-10 years of age) who were instructed to perform the choice task across two experiments, 27.5% showed a full strategy change. This closely matched the proportion of adults who had the same insight (28.2% of n = 39). The amount of erroneous choices, working memory capacity and inhibitory control, in contrast, indicated substantial disadvantages of children in task execution and cognitive control. A task difficulty manipulation did not affect the results. The stark contrast between age-differences in different aspects of cognitive performance might offer a unique opportunity for educators in fostering learning in children.

Indexed as

AttentionMemory, Short-TermAdultChildCognitionHumansLearning

Identifiers

PMID35639714
PMCPMC9154107

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.