ΠΑΝΤΕΙΟΝ ΠΑΝΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΙΟ ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΚΩΝ ΚΑΙ
ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΩΝ ΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΩΝ
PANTEION UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL
SCIENCES
Embedding Cognizance in
Intellectual Development
Smaragda Kazi
Panteion University of Social and
Political Sciences
• This presentation is based on:
Spanoudis, G., Demetriou, A., Kazi, S., Giorgala,
K., & Zenonos, V. (accepted). Embedding
Cognizance in Intellectual Development.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.
Intoduction
• The model proposed by Demetriou and
colleagues posits that, during development:
• (i) Intellectual development advances in four
cycles, with two phases in each
Fluid cognition
Counterintuitive
logical
relations
WM
Logically-based
principles
Speed
14 years
11 years
Inference-based
concepts
Speed
WM
Symbol-based mental
representations
Actionbased
episodic
representations
WM
Speed
WM
Speed
2 years
8 years
6 years
4 years
Pragmatic
inference
Systematic
logical
inference
• (ii) Cognizance (i.e., awareness of the perceptual
and the inferential origins of knowledge,
awareness of mental processes and mental
states, metarepresentation) advances through
the same cycles
Cognizance
Awareness of the formal relations
between rules and principles
Awareness of underlying mental
processes connecting representations
Children do not differentiate
between mental functions
Awareness of own
and others’
representation
Awareness of
perception as a
source of knowledge
2 years
4-5 years
6 years
13-14 years
8-9 years
• (iii) Cognizance mediates between basic
processing efficiency functions (i.e., processing
speed, inhibition control, and working memory)
and fluid cognition.
• Cognizance (i.e., self-evaluation and
selfawareness of mental operations) is one of
the causal factors for cognitive change
because it makes metarepresentation
possible.
• That is, cognizance produces cognitive
experiences about mental functioning
(including self evaluations and external feedback
about its efficiency vis-à-vis a goal).
• In this process, various aspects of executive
control, such as attention control and mental
attention, may be instrumental (Wiebe, Espy, &
Charak, 2010; Wiebe et al., 2011), because they
necessitate choices which, in turn, may cause
awareness of the processes currently involved
(Demetriou et al., 2013b, 2014b)
• Also, it seems that working memory activates
voluntary control processes which may
eventually generate awareness of the processes
involved.
• Thus, it is important to specify the flow of effects
between awareness, mental control, and working
memory in the successive phases of intellectual
development.
Aims of the present study
• (i) To examine the mediating role of cognizance
in development and,
• (ii) whether this mediation is phase-specific,
based on the representational and inferential
possibilities of each phase.
Hypotheses
• 1. Cognizance of mental states and mental
processes mediates between fundamental
mental processing functions, such as
processing efficiency and working memory, and
inferential processes underlying fluid
cognition.
• 2. This mediation is phase-specific: at
preschool it is based on representational
awareness, which is expressed through
awareness of the perceptual origin of knowledge
and ToM. At the next phase, in primary school, it
is based on procedural awareness, which is
expressed through awareness of the inferential
origin of knowledge.
• 3. Control of mental processing emerges
gradually from mental functioning. At the
beginning, it emerges from processes which
require attention to particular stimuli, either in
the environment (perceptual awareness) or in
mental representations (working memory).
Later, once mastered, it may become
instrumental in steering mental functioning
according to goals.
Sample
• 181 children (N=89 male) were examined:
• preschool (N=53, Mage = 66.31 months; SD =
6.71 months),
• first (N=40, Mage = 78.36 months; SD = 3.70
months),
• second (N=48, Mage = 90.94 months; SD = 3.71
months),
• and third primary school grade (N=44, Mage =
103.85 months; SD = 3.61 months).
Tasks
(1) Processing efficiency
(2) Working memory
(3) Awareness of cognitive processes and ToM
(4) Fluid cognition
(1) Processing Efficiency
(i) Speed of processing
(ii) Speed of perceptual discrimination
(iii) Perceptual discrimination and conceptual
control
(i) Speed of processing
• Simple, computerized choice reaction time task
• Target stimuli (geometrical figures) appeared on
the right or the left half of the screen and
children were instructed to press the
corresponding button (60 trials in each
condition).
• Total correct responses and mean reaction times
were recorded
(i) Speed of processing
(ii) Speed of perceptual discrimination
• Children were presented two sets of dots side by
side on the two halves of the screen, split by a
black line. Their task was to specify as fast as
possible if the right-side set was equal (or not) to
the left-side set (4 conditions x 8 trials).
(ii) Speed of perceptual discrimination
Same number – Same arrangement
Same number – Different arrangement
Different number – Same arrangement Different number – Different arrangement
(iii) Perceptual discrimination and
conceptual control
• This task included two conditions: Perceptual
discrimination and conceptual control (48
trials).
• Reaction times to correct responses were used in
the analyses
(iii) Perceptual discrimination and conceptual control
Perceptual discrimination (choose the bigger of the two)
Conceptual control (choose the object which is actually bigger in reality)
(2) Working Memory
(i) Phonological memory
(ii) Spatial memory
(iii) Numerical information
(i) Phonological memory
• This battery included two separate tasks: (a)
words and (b) pseudowords.
• These tests involved 16 familiar words and 16
pseudowords. Children were verbally presented
with series of words or pseudowords which they
recalled in presentation order.
(ii) Spatial memory (Corsi block)
(iii) Numerical working memory
• Children saw stimulus arrays of colored dots,
each including different number of dots. One to
seven dot arrays appeared in the center of the
computer screen and the child’s task was to
remember the number and color of dots of each
array.
• It was followed by a dot array inside a frame
(probe stimulus). The children’s task was to
indicate if the dots in the probe set were more
than the same color dots seen before (max 28
trials).
(3) Awareness of cognitive processes
and ToM
(i) Differentiating vision, hearing and inference
(ii) Hearing-inference differentiation
(iii) Theory of mind
(i) Differentiating vision, hearing and
inference
(ii) Hearing-inference differentiation
• Two short videos were presented showing a child
watching a teacher hiding three different color
toy cars (red, green, and blue) into their
corresponding color boxes (red, green, and
blue). What the child saw and heard in each
video was systematically manipulated, so that
the source of the child’s knowledge was vision,
hearing, or inference. Participants were asked
several “how did he/she know” questions after
watching each video.
(i) Differentiating vision,
hearing and inference
(ii) Hearing-inference
differentiation
A Phase: John sat beside the
teacher.
•John saw and heard the teacher
placing the red car in the red box.
•He saw, but did not hear, that the
green car was placed in the green
box
•He neither saw nor heard where
the blue car was placed.
A Phase: Ann sat across the table.
The teacher raised a wooden
separation between them. Ann
could not see what the teacher was
doing.
•Ann heard that the teacher placed
the red car in the red box
•She neither saw nor heard where
the green and blue car were placed.
B Phase: Ann (John) were later asked to find each of the cars.
The participant was asked :
•“How did Ann (John) know where the red (green/blue) car is?”
After looking for the blue car, the participant was asked about the teacher’s
reason for placing the blue car in the blue box:
•“Why did the teacher place the blue car in the blue box?”
(i) Differentiating vision,
hearing and inference
(ii) Hearing-inference
differentiation
(iii) Theory of mind
• The classical Sally task was used. In this task,
Sally places a ball in a basket and she goes away.
In her absence, Anna moves the ball in a box.
Sally returns and the participant is asked to
indicate where Sally will look for the ball.
Performance is scored on a pass-fail basis.
(4) Fluid cognition
• A Raven-like test involving ten matrices was
used which addressed three levels of complexity
(single dimension, intersection between the two
dimensions, intersection between three
dimensions.
• Scoring was effected on a pass-fail basis (0 for
wrong and 1 for correct choices) and level scores
were obtained by adding across level-specific
items.
Fluid cognition
Results
• Several types of models were pitted against each
other. In accordance with our first prediction, a
first set of models assumed that awareness of
mental processes mediates between
fundamental efficiency processes and Gf.
Gf was regressed on both awareness
factors - awareness of mental processes
contributes to the formation of
inferential processes involved in Gf.
Both awareness factors were regressed on
WM - the executive and information
handling processes in WM generate
awareness of mental processes
WM was regressed on speed and attention
control - WM is a time dependent process
mediating between processes reflecting
efficiency and representational and
inferential processes
Speed and attention control were regressed
on age - changes in these parameters directly
reflect age-related changes in processing
efficiency
The model applied on the whole sample (first value in each column, χ2 (145) =
168.69, p > .09, CFI = .97, RMSEA = .03, Model AIC =-121.31) and the 5-6 (the second
value) and the 7-8 years old children (the third value, χ2 (300) = 334.25, p = .08, CFI = .93,
RMSEA = .04, Model AIC= -265.50).
The direction of effects between
awareness and Gf was inverted so
that Gf mediated between efficiency
and working memory and
awareness.
The fit of this model was
significantly weaker.
In line with our first prediction, awareness
appeared to mediate between the processing
efficiency factors and Gf rather than to emerge
from it.
The model inverting the gf-awareness (compared to model 3A).
Note 1: The first value in each column refer to the whole sample (χ2 (146) = 182.63, p>
.02, CFI= .95, RMSEA= .04 (.00-.05, AIC= -107.37) and the second and third value to 56, 7-8 years old children, (χ2 (300) = 350.84, p = .02, CFI = .90, RMSEA = .04, Model
AIC= -249.16), respectively.
• The third model focused on the place of
attention control in the system. In both previous
models, the role of attention control was weak. It
was only related to age, suggesting that, in the
studied age span, it is not an effective agent in
mental processing. It may be the case that
attention control emerges gradually from the
experience of mental processing and ensuing
awareness of the perceptual or representational
content of processing.
As previously, Gf was regressed on both awareness
factors - awareness of mental processes contributes to the
formation of inferential processes involved in Gf.
Inferential awareness was regressed on WM and attention
control to implement the assumption that focusing on,
selecting, and organizing representations generates
awareness about them
Attention control was regressed on WM - mental processing
involved in effortful storage and recall of information sharpens the
ability to focus on and select representations according to goal
We regressed working on speed and perceptual awareness - both
of these factors contribute to working memory performance
We relegated perceptual awareness to the same level of speed from early in the age span studied here perceptual awareness
is already a strong index of mental efficiency.
The relations between attention control and its adjacent factors were
indeed stronger than in the model where attention control resided
on the same level with speed.
The model interpolating attention control between awareness and working memory, at the level of the whole sample, χ2
(143) = 167.74, CFI=.97, p < .08, RMSEA = .031, AIC= -118.26, and the two age groups, χ2 (296) = 327.83, CFI=.94, p < .10,
RMSEA = .030, AIC= -258.19
Note 1: The first, second, and third value in each column refer to the whole sample, 5-6, 7-8 years old children, respectively.
Age groups’ similarities and differences
Age is similarly related to speed and perceptual
awareness in the two age groups.
However, in the younger age group, WM is
more closely related to perceptual
awareness (.54) than in the older age group
(.39). Inversely, WM was weakly related to
speed in the younger group (-.22) and
more strongly in the older group (-.38).
Age groups’ similarities and differences
Attention control (-.14) and inferential
awareness (.17) were weakly related to
WM in the younger age group; they were
much higher in the older age group (-.35 and
.69, respectively). The relation between
attention control and inferential
awareness was very low in both groups (-.12
and -.12 in both).
In the younger age group, Gf was highly
related to perceptual awareness (.67) and
moderately to inferential awareness
(.29). This pattern was inverted in the older
age group where the perceptual awareness-Gf
relation dropped to non-significance (.18) and
the inferential awareness-Gf was much higher
(.41).
Age groups’ similarities and differences
This pattern is generally in line with our second
prediction that the mediation of cognizance
between processing efficiency and Gf is phasespecific and the third prediction that attention
control emerges gradually from more
fundamental processes but its embedding in
mental functioning is slow, exceeding the age
span studied here.
Discussion
• First, the dominance of models assuming that
cognizance mediates between Gf and processes
indexing processing and representational
efficiency suggested that cognizance is an
important factor of intellectual development and
individual differences in mental functioning.
Discussion
• Second, the relative advantage of the third
model, relative to all other models, suggested
that its role differentiates with development.
Specifically, in the 4-6 years phase cognizance of
the perceptual origins of knowledge was as basic
as speed, being the primary predictor of both
working memory (.54) and Gf (.67). In the next
phase, from 6-8 years, cognizance of the
inferential aspects of knowledge took over as a
mediator between all other processes and Gf
(.41)
Discussion
• A basic level of awareness is critical for handling
mental representations (in the 4-6 years phase)
but attention control emerges gradually, after a
certain level of this handling is attained. Thus,
this executive core is shaped gradually and it
becomes transparent to awareness later (in the
6-8 years phase). Even then, these relations are
still under formation. They are rather well
established in the 8-10 years.
Discussion
• These findings bear important implications for
theories of cognitive development and intelligence.
• In concern to developmental theory, this study
suggests that cognizance is an important
developmental force that contributes to the
transformation of processing and representational
possibilities into actual problem solving capabilities.
• Thus, their interactions with other aspects of
cognitive development need to be mapped and
understood more precisely.
Discussion
• Various aspects of cognizance, such as theory-ofmind, which were accorded a very special status in
intellectual and social development, are just some of
the stepping-stones in a long course of development.
• Executive control, which is very popular in
developmental research, emerges from cognizance.
• Understanding its development requires to examine
the possible role of several important factors not
examined here, such as language.
Discussion
• In concern to theory of intelligence, this study
suggested that cognizance deserves a stronger
position than it was accorded to it by traditional
differential theories of intelligence
• This assumption has a practical implication as
well. Developmental and intelligence testing
need to broaden its scope to include measures of
cognizance together with other more traditional
measures.
Thank you!