Work

Developmental differences in temporal schema acquisition impact reasoning decisions

Year: 2019

Type: article

Abstract: Schemas capture patterns across multiple experiences, accumulating information about common event structures that guide decision making in new contexts. Schemas are an important principle of leading theories of cognitive development; yet, we know little about how children and adolescents form schemas and use schematic knowledge to guide decisions. Here, we show that the ability to acquire schematic knowledge based on the temporal regularities of events increases during childhood and adolescence. Furthermore, we show that temporally mediated schematic knowledge biases reasoning decisions in an age-dependent manner. Participants with greater temporal schematic knowledge were more likely to infer that temporally related items shared other, non-temporal properties, with adults showing the greatest relationship between schema knowledge and reasoning choices. These data indicate that the mechanisms underlying schema formation and expression are not fully developed until adulthood and may reflect the ongoing maturation of hippocampus and prefrontal cortex through adolescence.

Source: Cognitive Neuropsychology

DOI: 10.1080/02643294.2019.1667316

Authors: Athula Pudhiyidath, Hannah E. Roome, Christine Coughlin, Kim V. Nguyen, Alison R. Preston

Institution: The University of Texas at Austin

Language: English

Topic: Child and Animal Learning Development

Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institute of Mental Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Awards: G1018002522, G3087024383, G4595304563, Hippocampal and frontoparietal mechanisms for knowledge acquisition and inference