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Praise is not only rewarding but also informative. It allowsus to learn about our skills and competence even when weare uncertain or unable to judge for ourselves. Not all praiseis equally meaningful, however: Praise from someone whopraises indiscriminately is less informative than from some-one who praises selectively. Here we ask whether young chil-dren infer the informativeness of others’ praise based on thestatistical dependence between praise and the quality of work.Exp. 1 shows that adults and 4-5 year-olds were more likely totrust praise from a teacher whose previous praise covaried withthe quality of work (i.e., selective praise) than praise from ateacher who indiscriminately praised independent of the qual-ity of work (i.e., overpraise). Exp. 2 addressed the possibilitythat participants simply prefer a teacher who praises less often.Even for young children, praise is more than something nice.Rather, they can track the informativeness of others’ evalua-tive feedback and use it to learn about the quality of their ownwork.

The ability to monitor epistemic uncertainty is critical for self-directed learning. However, we still know little about youngchildren’s ability to detect uncertainty in their mental repre-sentations. Here we asked whether a spontaneous informationgathering behavior – social referencing – is driven by uncer-tainty during early childhood. Children ages 2-5 completed aword-learning task in which they were presented with one ortwo objects, heard a label, and were asked to put the labeledobject in a bucket. Referential ambiguity was manipulatedthrough the number of objects present and their familiarity. InExperiment 1, when there were two novel objects and a novellabel, the referent was ambiguous; when there were two famil-iar objects, or only one novel or familiar object, the referentwas known or could be inferred. In Experiment 2, there wereeither two novel objects, two familiar objects, or one familiarand one novel object; in the latter case the referent could be in-ferred by excluding the familiar object. To further manipulatethe availability of referential cues, the experimenter gazed ateither the target or the center of the table while labeling the ob-ject. In both experiments, children looked at the experimentermore often while making their response when the referent wasambiguous. In Experiment 2, children also looked at the ex-perimenter more when there was one familiar and one novelobject, but only when the experimenter’s gaze during label-ing was uninformative. These results suggest that children’ssocial referencing is a sensitive index of graded epistemic un-certainty.

Parenting practices are known to play an important role inshaping children’s outcomes. For example, children whoseparents engage them in high-quality conversations and whoare given opportunities for free play are at an advantage forlearning and later academic outcomes. However, communicat-ing the results of relevant scientific findings to parents remainsa challenge. One possible moderator of uptake of parentinginformation is the implicit theories parents hold with regardto child development and parenting. As a first step in inves-tigating this possibility, the present work establishes a newmeasure of parenting attitudes including three subscales cor-responding to attitudes about rules and respect, affection andattachment, and early learning. We then examine whether sub-scale scores predict uptake of new information about children’slearning. Scores on the Early Learning subscale, but not theRules and Respect subscale, predicted generalization from thearticle, providing initial evidence of the validity of this mea-sure.

Cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved treatment for insomnia, depression, and anxiety consisting of pulsed, low-intensity current applied to the earlobes or scalp. Despite empirical evidence of clinical efficacy, its mechanism of action is largely unknown. The goal was to characterize the acute effects of CES on resting state brain activity. Our primary hypothesis was that CES would result in deactivation in cortical and subcortical regions. Eleven healthy controls were administered CES applied to the earlobes at subsensory thresholds while being scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging in the resting state. We tested 0.5- and 100-Hz stimulation, using blocks of 22 sec "on" alternating with 22 sec of baseline (device was "off"). The primary outcome measure was differences in blood oxygen level dependent data associated with the device being on versus baseline. The secondary outcome measures were the effects of stimulation on connectivity within the default mode, sensorimotor, and fronto-parietal networks. Both 0.5- and 100-Hz stimulation resulted in significant deactivation in midline frontal and parietal regions. 100-Hz stimulation was associated with both increases and decreases in connectivity within the default mode network (DMN). Results suggest that CES causes cortical brain deactivation, with a similar pattern for high- and low-frequency stimulation, and alters connectivity in the DMN. These effects may result from interference from high- or low-frequency noise. Small perturbations of brain oscillations may therefore have significant effects on normal resting state brain activity. These results provide insight into the mechanism of action of CES, and may assist in the future development of optimal parameters for effective treatment.

Little is known about the mechanisms underlying a ubiquitous behavior in preschoolers, help-seeking. We tested the hypothesis that preschoolers' awareness of their own uncertainty is associated with help-seeking. Three-, 4-, and 5-year-olds (N = 125) completed a perceptual identification task twice: once independently and once when they could request help from a confederate whose competence level was manipulated. Consistent with our hypothesis, participants sought help more frequently on trials for which, when required to answer independently, they expressed lower confidence. Children in the bad-helper condition were slower to respond after receiving help than those in the good-helper condition. Finally, females and children with more advanced theory of mind were more likely to seek help, identifying additional factors that relate to help-seeking.

The goal of this research was to test whether subjective memory experiences drive accuracy regulation decisions above and beyond objective memory indices. In four experiments (n = 115) subjective recollection (i.e., reporting “Remember” in the Remember-Know task) was dissociated from memory accuracy by manipulating retrieval during a two-alternative forced-choice recognition task: in the Match condition the distracter was a novel exemplar of the target (e.g., a studied and an unstudied toaster) and in the Non-match condition the distracter was a novel exemplar of another studied but untested item (e.g., a studied toaster and an unstudied birdhouse). Participants were more accurate on Match trials, but reported subjective recollection more frequently on Non-match trials. Critically, participants also bet more often on Non-match trials to the detriment of their score (Experiment 1). This pattern persisted when participants were additionally required to retrieve details about items (Experiment 2) and when confidence assessments were collected (Experiment 3). Finally, participants bet more on Non-match trials even when subjective judgments were not elicited, suggesting that the decision process does not require reporting on subjective experience (Experiment 4). These results indicate that subjective memory experiences guide decision-making independent of objective accuracy and thus are critical to accuracy regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]