PubMed İndeksli Yayınlar Koleksiyonu / PubMed Indexed Publications Collection

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11779/1928

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  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 3
    Citation - Scopus: 3
    Developmental Differences in Children and Adults' Enforcement of Explore Versus Exploit Search Strategies in the United States and Turkey
    (Wiley, 2024-04-25) Kiefer, Sarah L.; Aksu, Ece; Şen, Hilal H.; Lucca, Kelsey
    Across development, as children acquire a deeper understanding of their environment, they explore less and take advantage, or "exploit," what they already know. Here, we test whether children also enforce exploration-oriented search behaviors onto others. Specifically, we ask whether children are more likely to encourage a search agent to explore versus exploit their environment, and whether this pattern varies across childhood (between 3 and 6 years). We also ask whether this pattern differs between children and adults, and generalizes across two different sociocultural contexts-Turkey and the United States-that differ on dimensions that might relate to children's decisions about exploration (e.g., curiosity-focused educational practices, attitudes toward uncertainty avoidance). Participants (N = 358) watched an agent search for rewards and were asked at various points whether the agent should "stay" (exploit) in their current location, or "go" (explore) to a new location. At all points in the experiment, children enforced exploration significantly more often than adults. Early in the agent's search, children in the US enforced exploration more often than children in Turkey; later in the search, younger children (from both sociocultural contexts) were more likely to continue enforcing exploration compared to older children. These findings highlight that children are not only highly exploratory themselves, but also enforce exploration onto others-underscoring the central role that exploration plays in driving early cognitive development across diverse sociocultural contexts.Research Highlights The current study examined developmental and cross-cultural differences in children and adults' enforcement of explore-exploit search strategies. Children in the US and Turkey enforced exploration more than adults, who enforced exploitation more often; results were generally consistent across cultures with small differences. Mirroring developmental changes in children's own search behavior; the tendency to enforce exploration decreased between 3- to 6-years of age. Findings underscore the central role of an "exploration mindset" in children's early decision-making-even when exploration has no direct benefits to the child themselves.
  • Article
    Citation - WoS: 6
    Citation - Scopus: 9
    Exploring Individual Differences in Infants' Looking Preferences for Impossible Events: the Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale
    (Frontiers Media Sa, 2023-02-02) Sen, Hilal H. H.; Lucca, Kelsey; Lazaro, Vanessa; Lee, Nayen; Wang, Jinjing Jenny
    Infants are drawn to events that violate their expectations about the world: they look longer at physically impossible events, such as when a car passes through a wall. Here, we examined whether individual differences in infants' visual preferences for physically impossible events reflect an early form of curiosity, and asked whether caregivers' behaviors, parenting styles, and everyday routines relate to these differences. In Study 1, we presented infants (N = 47, M-age = 16.83 months, range = 10.29-24.59 months) with events that violated physical principles and closely matched possible events. We measured infants' everyday curiosity and related experiences (i.e., caregiver curiosity-promoting activities) through a newly developed curiosity scale, The Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale (EMCS). Infants' looking preferences for physically impossible events were positively associated with their score on the EMCS, but not their temperament, vocabulary, or caregiver trait curiosity. In Study 2A, we set out to better understand the relation between the EMCS and infants' looking preferences for physically impossible events by assessing the underlying structure of the EMCS with a larger sample of children (N = 211, M-age = 47.63 months, range = 10.29-78.97 months). An exploratory factor analysis revealed that children's curiosity was comprised four factors: Social Curiosity, Broad Exploration, Persistence, and Information-Seeking. Relatedly, caregiver curiosity-promoting activities were composed of five factors: Flexible Problem-Solving, Cognitive Stimulation, Diverse Daily Activities, Child-Directed Play, and Awe-Inducing Activities. In Study 2B (N = 42 infants from Study 1), we examined which aspects of infant curiosity and caregiver behavior predicted infants' looking preferences using the factor structures of the EMCS. Findings revealed that infants' looking preferences were uniquely related to infants' Broad Exploration and caregivers' Awe-Inducing Activities (e.g., nature walks with infants, museum outings). These exploratory findings indicate that infants' visual preferences for physically impossible events may reflect an early form of curiosity, which is related to the curiosity-stimulating environments provided by caregivers. Moreover, this work offers a new comprehensive tool, the Early Multidimensional Curiosity Scale, that can be used to measure both curiosity and factors related to its development, starting in infancy and extending into childhood.