U-Shaped Development: An Old but Unsolved Problem

Abstract

Even today the investigation of U-shaped functions in human development is of considerable importance for different domains of Developmental Psychology. More and more scientific researchers focus their efforts on the challenge to describe and explain the phenomenon by identifying those skills and abilities being affected. The impact of U-shaped functions on diagnostic decision-making and on therapeutic treatment programs highlights the importance of understanding the nature of non-monotonic development. The present article therefore addresses the relevant questions of how U-shaped functions are defined in theory, in which developmental domains such non-monotonic growth curves are suggested to occur, and which implications there are for future methodology and diagnostic practice. Finally, it is recommended to clearly identify those interactions between proximal and distal subcomponents which are expected to contribute to a U-shaped development.

A psychoengineering paradigm for the neurocognitive mechanisms of biofeedback and neurofeedback

“…A common observation in developmental skill acquisition is the U-shaped learning curve, representing a three-step process: good performance, followed by bad performance, followed by good performance once again (Carlucci & Case, 2013). The adoption of novel processing strategies leads to an increased cognitive load and to temporary losses of processing efficiency (Pauls, Macha, & Petermann, 2013;Siegler, 2004). Language acquisition models confirm that U-shaped behavior is unavoidable since human learners are limited by cognitive constraints (Carlucci & Case, 2013).…”

“…The cognitive load is expected to be anti-correlated with the U-shaped evolution of performance (Pauls, Macha, & Petermann, 2013;Siegler, 2004) and should not reach too high a level, or the subject will experience a cognitive overload and a subsequent loss of motivation. (Keizer, Verschoor, Verment, & Hommel, 2010).…”

“…Task performance (such as biosignal modulation ability) or cognitive load physiological markers (such as galvanic skin response, or CNV in Cz) are objective but indirect indicator of mastery, and should follow a U-shaped evolution (Pauls, Macha, & Petermann, 2013;Siegler, 2004;Gevensleben, et al, 2014) in explicit feedback protocols. Despite U-shape cognitive demand evolution was first reported in 1978 in biofeedback systems (Gatchel, Korman, Weis, Smith, & Clarke, 1978), and is still reported in recent investigations (Gevensleben, et al, 2014), most studies investigate performances before and after feedback administration, instead of duringand are therefore ignoring this issue.…”

Non-linearities in Theory-of-Mind Development

“…Temporary regressions have been found in a variety of domains, including motor and verbal development (Gershkoff-Stowe and Thelen, 2004; Swingley, 2009), non-verbal symbol learning (Namy et al, 2004), face perception (Cashon and Cohen, 2004), false belief understanding (Bernstein et al, 2011), intent-based moral judgments (Margoni and Surian, 2016), creativity, reasoning, and auditory localization (for an early collection of studies, see Strauss and Stavy, 1982; for modeling this U-shaped development, see Morse et al, 2011; for a recent overview, see Pauls et al, 2013). …”

Toward Cognitively Constrained Models of Language Processing: A Review

“…Children show a U-shaped learning curve (see Pauls et al, 2013 for an overview, U-shaped learning curve is depicted in Figure 1) when learning past tenses of verbs, using the correct irregular form first (e.g., the past tense ate for eat), then using the incorrect regular form of irregular verbs (e.g., eated), before using the correct irregular form again. It is conceivable that whereas children's performance initially decreases, children are in the process of learning how to correctly form irregular past tenses and therefore have increasing competence (cf.…”