Children’s attention to task-relevant information accounts for relations between language and spatial cognition

Abstract

Children's spatial language reliably predicts their spatial skills, but the nature of this relation is a source of debate. This investigation examined whether the mechanisms accounting for such relations are specific to language use or reflect a domain-general mechanism of selective attention. Experiment 1 examined whether 4-year-olds' spatial skills were predicted by their selective attention or their adaptive language use. Children completed (a) an attention task assessing attention to task-relevant color, size, and location cues; (b) a description task assessing adaptive language use to describe scenes varying in color, size, and location; and (c) three spatial tasks. There was correspondence between the cue types that children attended to and produced across description and attention tasks. Adaptive language use was predicted by both children's attention and task-related language production, suggesting that selective attention underlies skills in using language adaptively. After controlling for age, gender, receptive vocabulary, and adaptive language use, spatial skills were predicted by children's selective attention. The attention score predicted variance in spatial performance previously accounted for by adaptive language use. Experiment 2 followed up on the attention task (Experiment 2a) and description task (Experiment 2b) from Experiment 1 to assess whether performance in the tasks related to selective attention or task-specific demands. Performance in Experiments 2a and 2b paralleled that in Experiment 1, suggesting that the effects in Experiment 1 reflected children's selective attention skills. These findings show that selective attention is a central factor supporting spatial skill development that could account for many effects previously attributed to children's language use.

Speech and Gesture Production Provide Unique Insights Into Young Children’s Spatial Reasoning

“…Miller and Simmering (2018) extended this work by assessing whether effects of adaptive word production were driven by attention. They conducted a replication of Miller et al with an additional attention task to assess children’s recognition of relevant cues in the description task.…”

“…Through this play, children likely become better at identifying that spatial cues are relevant, which facilitates performance in novel spatial situations. In addition, there are developmental changes in executive function that relate to spatial performance (Verdine, Irwin, Golinkoff, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2014) and, in particular, to changes in selective attention (Miller & Simmering, 2018). In actuality, there is not one factor but a combination of factors contributing to children's attention to relevant spatial information and subsequent spatial performance.…”

“…Miller and colleagues (Miller & Simmering, 2018; Miller, Vlach, & Simmering, 2017) built on these findings with nonspatial language to propose a new explanation for the effects of language. They proposed that developmental changes in selective attention to task‐relevant information supported spatial performance and was underlying effects of language.…”

“…Children's speech was often assessed in contexts other than spatial tasks, such as vocabulary tasks (e.g., Hermer-Vazquez et al, 2001). Theoretical questions centered on whether spatial skills arise from the acquisition of spatial words to allow for verbal encoding (e.g., Hermer-Vazquez et al, 2001;Pruden et al, 2011) or from nonverbal skills like attending to task-relevant information (Miller & Simmering, 2018). Research on gesture typically assessed language in the contexts of spatial tasks and compared verbal (speech) and nonverbal (gesture) language (Austin & Sweller, 2014;Ehrlich et al, 2006).…”

Using the game therapy method in the process of correction of intra-family communication of pre-schoolers

“…Известно, что игра является надежным методом разрешения эмоциональных и коммуникативных проблем ребенка (N.M. Dias [9], E. Hilary etc. [18], V.R. Simmering & C.M.…”