The Impact of Gross Motor Skills on the Development of Emotion Understanding in Children Aged 3–6 Years: The Mediation Role of Executive Functions

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of gross motor skills on the development of emotion understanding and the role of executive function in the relation between gross motor skills and emotion understanding. A total of 662 children were tested for gross motor skills, emotion understanding, and executive function. Regression analysis showed that gross motor skills were significantly related to executive function. Multiple regression analyses showed that gross motor skills and executive function were significant predictors for emotion understanding. Furthermore, mediation analysis showed that executive function mediated the impact of gross motor skills on emotion understanding. Gross motor skills contributed to emotion understanding by improving children’s executive function. The findings imply that a pathway from gross motor skills to emotion understanding is mediated by executive function, which offers a novel perspective on the developmental mechanisms of children’s emotion understanding.

The Impact of Working Memory on the Development of Social Play in Japanese Preschool Children: Emotion Knowledge as a Mediator

“…In addition, some studies suggest that working memory has a critical role in children’s emotion knowledge [ 43 , 46 ]. The main reason working memory is essential for emotion knowledge is that the cognitive scheme for understanding emotion-provoking situations is a complex structure that links emotions, other mental states (such as goals, desires, and expectations), and external events and contextual representations (such as goal achievement and failure situations) [ 47 ]. There is evidence that working memory capacity affects the development of emotion knowledge [ 39 ] and that working memory predicts emotion knowledge [ 48 ].…”