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Research on the role of moral emotions in moral judgment, both in hypothetical dilemmas and in real-life moral decision making, has focused on preschool and elementary school age, with few studies spanning a larger age range, into adolescence and adulthood. The present special issue addresses a neglected area, the development of moral emotions and moral motivation in adolescence and adulthood. The focus is on the "Happy Victimizer Phenomenon", a pattern of emotion attributions to a moral transgressor that has been primarily observed in childhood, but that does not seem to disappear with age. We will begin by briefly reviewing 30 years of developmental research on moral emotion attribution and the "happy victimizer phenomenon". This review will be followed by a discussion of the present papers.

An action's end state can be anticipated by considering the agent's goal, or simply by projecting the movement trajectory. Theories suggest that individuals with autism spectrum condition (ASC) have difficulties anticipating other's goal-directed actions, caused by an impairment using prior information. We examined whether children, adolescents and adults with and without ASC visually anticipate another's action based on its goal or movement trajectory by presenting participants an agent repeatedly taking different paths to reach the same of two targets. The ASC group anticipated the goal and not just the movement pattern, but needed more time to perform goal-directed anticipations. Results are in line with predictive coding accounts, claiming that the use of prior information is impaired in ASC.

Metacognitive control is an important factor for successful learning and has been shown to increase across childhood and adolescence. Only few studies have attempted to investigate the cognitive processes and psychological mechanisms that subserve metacognitively-based control and the development thereof. Accordingly, the aim of the current study was to gain an insight into the cognitive and psychological correlates that relate to metacognitively-based control processes. Specifically, we were interested in two measures of metacognitive control: learners' ability to self-regulate their study time in a study time allocation paradigm, as well as the efficiency with which they allocated their study time. It was of particular interest to explore the relation between declarative metamemory and procedural metacognitive skills. In addition, we assessed learners' general cognitive and executive abilities. We tested a group of 10-year olds and a group of adults. Surprisingly, and in contrast to previous studies, the current study does not support a relation between declarative metamemory and procedural skills, or executive functions and intelligence and procedural skills. We interpret our results in line with a dual systems view of metacognitive abilities and further speculate whether procedural skills might become increasingly independent and automated with age.

Recent research suggests that impaired action prediction is at the core of social interaction deficits in autism spectrum condition (ASC). Here, we targeted two cognitive mechanisms that are thought to underlie the prediction of others' actions: statistical learning and efficiency considerations. We measured proactive eye movements of 10-year-old children and adults with and without ASC in anticipation of an agent's repeatedly presented action. Participants with ASC showed a generally weaker tendency to generate action predictions. Further analyses revealed that statistical learning led to systematic accurate action predictions in the control groups. Participants with ASC were impaired in their ability to use frequency information for action predictions. Our findings inform etiological models of impaired social interaction in ASC.

In a series of 3 experiments, the authors investigated the influence of symmetry of variables on children's and adults' data interpretation. They hypothesized that symmetrical (i.e., present/present) variables would support correct interpretations more than asymmetrical (i.e., present/absent) variables. Participants were asked to judge covariation in a series of data sets presented in contingency tables and to justify their judgments. Participants in Experiments 1 and 2 were elementary school children (Experiment 1: n = 52 second graders, n = 44 fourth graders; Experiment 2: n = 50 second graders). Participants in Experiment 3 were adults (n = 62). In Experiment 1, children in the symmetrical variables condition performed better than those in the asymmetrical variables condition. Children in the symmetrical variables condition judged more data patterns correctly and they more frequently justified their choices by referring to the complete table. Experiment 2 ruled out the possibility that this effect was caused by differences in question format. Even when question format was held constant, second graders performed better with symmetrical variables. Experiment 3 showed that adults' data interpretation is also affected by symmetry of variables. Collectively, these results indicate that symmetry of variables affects interpretation of covariation data. The authors argue that symmetrical variables provide a context for meaningful comparison. With asymmetrical variables, the importance of the comparison is less salient. Thus, the symmetry of variables should be considered by researchers as well as educators.

Children were tested at ages four and six for recall of clusterable objects under play and sort conditions. Conceptual clustering predicted recall performance of six-year olds in both conditions and of four-year olds in the sort condition. The stability of memory variables was low with the exception of free recall. (BC)

Prior studies explored the early development of memory monitoring and control. However, little work has examined cross-cultural similarities and differences in metacognitive development in early childhood. In the present research, we investigated a total of 100 Japanese and German preschool-aged children's memory monitoring and control in a visual perception task. After seeing picture items, some of which were repeated, children were presented with picture pairs, one of which had been presented earlier and the other was a novel item. They then were asked to identify the previously presented picture. Children were also asked to evaluate their confidence about their selection, and to sort the responses to be used for being awarded with a prize at the end of the test. Both groups similarly expressed more confidence in the accurately remembered items than in the inaccurately remembered items, and their sorting decision was based on their subjective confidence. Japanese children's sorting more closely corresponded to memory accuracy than German children's sorting, however. These findings were further confirmed by a hierarchical Bayesian estimation of metacognitive efficiency. The present findings therefore suggest that early memory monitoring and control have both culturally similar and diverse aspects. The findings are discussed in light of broader sociocultural influences on metacognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both theory of mind (ToM) and executive functioning have been related to children's academic abilities. In a longitudinal study with 112 children, we investigated the influence of these two abilities on children's math and reading performance at 7 years of age. We found that math performance was predicted by concurrent working memory as well as by preschool numerical abilities and ToM. Reading performance was predicted by concurrent working memory and verbal IQ at 6 years. This corroborates earlier research demonstrating the importance of executive functioning (working memory) and ToM for later academic abilities. We argue that ToM may be an important developmental precursor of math performance because both require an understanding of representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present longitudinal study aims at investigating the interplay between child temperament, mother–child interaction quality and child Theory of Mind (ToM) at preschool age with regard to the development of child problem behavior at school age in 115 participants. Maternal sensitivity and child temperament were assessed when children were 4 years old. At 5 years of age, child ToM was assessed. At 8 years of age, child problem behavior was assessed. Results showed that child problem behavior was independently predicted by child temperamental negative affectivity and maternal sensitivity. The current study underlines the important role of both endogenous as well as exogenous factors for healthy child development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theory of Mind (ToM) and the structure of intelligence were investigated in 115 4‐year‐olds. Specifically, we asked whether children's intelligence involves both general and specific aspects and whether standard ToM measures of false belief can serve as indicators of social intelligence. Psychometric intelligence and children's domain‐specific understanding of number concepts and of mental states (false belief) were measured in the laboratory; communication and social skills were assessed through mothers' report. A confirmatory factor analysis revealed poor fit for a one‐factor model, but good fit for a model with three correlated factors, suggesting that children's intelligence involves both general and specific aspects. Numerate‐spatial and verbal intelligence were correlated (.70), and social intelligence correlated to a stronger degree with verbal (.66) than with numerate‐spatial intelligence (.37). Laboratory assessment of false belief and mothers' reports about children's social skills loaded on a single factor, pointing to real‐world consequences of ToM abilities. Statement of contributionWhat is already known on this subject?The structure of intelligence in 4‐year‐olds comprises domain‐general and domain‐specific dimensions.Some domain‐specific dimensions are numerate‐spatial, verbal, and social intelligence.What does this study add?Theory of Mind emerges as an aspect of children's social intelligence.Social intelligence (including Theory of Mind) is related to children's numerate‐spatial abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Executive functions or cognitive self-regulatory control processes are critical for children's ability to successfully navigate their academic and social environment. In this study, we focused on the development of one critical executive function skill, that of inhibitory control. In a longitudinal study, we tested 96 children at 24, 30, 36, 50, and 60 months of age with age-appropriate measures of inhibition. We found evidence for the developmental stability of inhibitory abilities. Inhibitory control at 30 months of age was strongly related to inhibitory control at 60 months of age even when verbal IQ was partialled out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, we investigated a total of fifty-one 3.5-, 4.5-, and 5.5-year-old children?s expectations about another person?s helping behaviors. We asked children to complete a story in which one person failed to complete his goal (e.g., because an object was misplaced or put out of his reach) while the other person observed the event. We asked whether the children expected the other person to help the protagonist or whether they expected the protagonist to help himself. Children of 3.5 years expected the other person to provide help in the majority of trials. In contrast, the older children were equally likely to predict that the other person would help the protagonist or the protagonist would help himself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary goal of this study was the broad assessment and modeling of scientific reasoning in elementary school age. One hundred fifty-five fourth graders were tested on 20 recently developed paper-and-pencil items tapping four different components of scientific reasoning (understanding the nature of science, understanding theories, designing experiments, and interpreting data). As confirmed by Rasch analyses, the scientific reasoning items formed a reliable scale. Model comparisons differentiated scientific reasoning as a separate construct from measures of intelligence and reading skills and revealed discriminant validity. Furthermore, we explored the relationship between scientific reasoning and the postulated prerequisites inhibitory control, spatial abilities and problem-solving skills. As shown by correlation and regression analyses, beside general cognitive abilities (intelligence, reading skills) problem-solving skills and spatial abilities predicted performance in scientific reasoning items and thus contributed to explaining individual differences in elementary school children's scientific reasoning competencies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The understanding that another person''s belief can differ from reality and that behaviour is guided by beliefs and not by reality reflects an important cornerstone in the development of a Theory of Mind. The present event-related potential (ERP) study had two aims: first, to reveal ERPs that distinguish between false- and true-belief reasoning and second, to investigate the neural changes in the development of false- and true-belief reasoning from childhood to adulthood. True- and false-belief cartoon stories were presented to adults and 6–8-year-old children. Results revealed two waveforms that differentiated between the two conditions: a late positive complex (LPC) associated with the reorientation from external stimuli to internal mental representations and a late anterior slow wave (LSW) associated with stimulus-independent processing of internal mental representations, a process that might be centrally involved in the decoupling mechanism. Additionally, we found developmental effects at an ERP level. Children showed a more posterior localization of the LPC and a broader frontal distribution of the LSW. The results may reflect developmental progress in conceptualizing the mental domain and support the idea that the cortical mentalizing network continues to develop even after children are able to master false beliefs. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract This research investigates children's understanding of the significance of comparisons between data categories for judgments of covariation. Past studies showed that children sometimes neglect some of the relevant data categories. This may occur because children fail to understand the relevance of the comparisons between data categories. To investigate this interpretation, 51 second graders and 43 fourth graders were tested in a between-subject design. In the standard condition, children were asked to explain their own covariation judgments. In the explain-correct condition, children were told the correct judgments and asked to explain them. Children in the explain-correct condition often provided explanations that were consistent with the correct judgments; children in the standard condition did so less often. Thus, when asked to explain correct judgments, elementary school children's explanations reveal that they possess a basic conceptual understanding of inference from covariation data. Highlights • Children often incorrectly interpret covariation data presented in 2 × 2 tables. • Asking children to explain correct judgments revealed basic competencies. • Explanations reveal a conceptual understanding of covariation data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about what exactly differentiates metacognitive processes from ordinary cognitive processes particularly early in development, and the underlying developmental aspects. To examine the time-course of metacognition, the present study investigated the neural underpinnings of judgments of learning (JoLs) and compared them with control judgments, using an event-related potentials (ERP) design. During ERP recording, children age seven to eight were presented with cue-target picture pairs and instructed to learn these pairs. After each pair, they either had to make a JoL (assess the likelihood of remembering the target when only presented with the cue) or a colour judgment (indicate whether the colour yellow had been present in one of the two pictures presented earlier). Results revealed a late slow wave divergence maximal pronounced from 550 ms to 950 ms post-stimulus that distinguished between JOLs and colour judgments. Over centro-parietal areas, JoLs showed a more negative going slow wave compared to the colour judgments, and this pattern was independent of performance. The results are in support of theories that assume a distinction between metacognitive and cognitive processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The ability to represent false beliefs is commonly considered as to be the critical test for having a Theory of Mind (ToM). For correct predictions or explanations of other peoples'' behavior it is necessary to understand that mental states are sometimes independent of reality and misrepresent the real state of the world. In contrast, when people hold true beliefs, predictions and explanations about behavior can simply be derived from reality. Previous neuroimaging studies with adults suggest that the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and the right temporo-parietal junction (rTPJ) are engaged in false belief reasoning. However, studies investigating the neural correlates of belief reasoning in children are rare. Using cartoon stories that depicted an unexpected transfer, we compared false belief reasoning with true belief reasoning in children of a narrow age range between 10 and 12years and in adults. In both groups, the dorsal medial frontal cortex was activated during false versus true belief reasoning. In contrast to adults, children did not selectively recruit the rTPJ during false belief reasoning. We found a group by belief interaction in the right rostral PFC and the posterior cingulate cortex. In these areas, children compared to adults showed increased activity associated with false belief reasoning in contrast to true belief reasoning. These results implicate modulation of the cortical network that underlies false belief reasoning during development and far beyond the time children successfully master false belief tasks. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]