Abstract
In the present experiment, we used a reversed-contingency paradigm (the windows task: [Russell, J., Mauthner, N., Sharpe, S., & Tidswell, T. (1991). The windows task as a measure of strategic deception in preschoolers and autistic subjects. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9, 331-349]) to explore the effect of alterations in the task array on 3-year-old children's strategic reasoning. Children were offered a choice between either a desirable object and an undesirable object, or between a desirable object and an empty location. There was significantly better performance on the two-object version of the task. This difference was evident even on subsequent trials when the second object was removed and the empty location reintroduced. This suggests that presenting children with a choice between two objects helps them to formulate a strategy, rather than to execute a previously determined response. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 184-192 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Journal of Experimental Child Psychology |
Volume | 98 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Dec 2007 |
Keywords
- strategic reasoning
- metacognition
- inhibition
- theory of mind
- executive function