Digital media has the potential to disrupt or support children’s socio-emotional development. The aim of this meta-analysis was to clarify the inconsistencies in research surrounding early-childhood digital media exposure and the association with children’s socio-emotional outcomes. We identified 84 correlational and experimental studies investigating 61,865 neurotypical 0–6-year-old children. For the 72 correlational studies, there was a small but significant positive association between children’s daily exposure to media and their socio-emotional development, with a stronger association for socio-emotional difficulties, suggesting that more exposure was associated with worse socio-emotional outcomes. For the 13 experimental studies, there was no significant association. However, this meta-analysis is limited due to the availability of data in the literature and quality of children’s media exposure measures.

Young children spend a significant and increasing amount of time using digital media. Thus, a clear understanding of how best to support children’s learning from digital media is important. A specific recommendation by some professional bodies is that parental co-use should be applied to scaffold children’s learning from digital media. The aim of this meta-analysis was to assess the association between adult-child co-use on 0–6-year-old children’s learning from digital media. The analysis was conducted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. We identified 17 studies investigating typically developing 0–6-year-old children's learning outcomes from digital media use with an adult for inclusion in this meta-analysis. We extracted 100 effect sizes (Ntotal = 1,288) from studies published between 1977 and 2022. Our meta-analysis found a small positive association of adult-child co-use on children’s learning from digital media (g = 0.198, 95% CIs: 0.059 – 0.337, p = 0.009); none of our moderator analyses were significant. While the evidence suggests a positive role of adult-child co-use, support for this conclusion was limited by small sample sizes and a lack of variety in study design. These issues limited the statistical power of our moderator analyses. The effect is, however, clearly significant and suggests that a real effect exists in the practice of co-use, but future research systematically exploring the mechanisms by which adult-child co-use supports children’s learning is warranted.

Many nuclear power plants in the U.S. and worldwide are currently monitored and controlled via control rooms outfitted primarily with analog instrumentation and controls (I&C). Due to obsolescence issues with parts for analog I&C along with a desire to leverage efficiency gains associated with digital systems, there is an increasing focus on modernization activities for both safety and non-safety systems. Digital modernization can include the addition of digital instrumentation, sensors, and control systems; some that are visible to operators and some that are not. Operator-facing digital controls include the human system interface (HSI). The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is responsible for reviewing the safety of control room designs at nuclear power plants. Part of the NRC’s review process includes an assessment of how changes to control room HSIs impact usability and support safe operations. Safety and usability are often assessed from a workload, performance, and situation awareness perspective. Recent research into the factors that influence system evaluation found that users with high affinity for technology (i.e., a user with generally positive affect towards technology) perform differently on usability tests than users with less affinity towards technology. The present study had two aims: (1) to evaluate the potential usefulness of a recently developed affinity for technology interaction (ATI) survey for usability and human factors research in the nuclear domain and (2) to determine if affinity, as measured by the ATI, is related to perceived system usability and operator performance during simulated digital control room tasks. The first phase of the research was the collection of ATI data from students and a group of control room operators to establish potential baseline differences in technology affinity between populations. The second phase of the research was the collection of ATI and system usability survey (SUS) data from a small crew of operators to determine if there was an association between technology affinity and perceived system usability (assessed via the system usability survey [SUS]) during performance of simulated operational scenarios. The results are discussed in the context of how future regulatory guidance related to operator-facing digital systems may need to consider additional usability metrics as well as the broader safety implications for individual differences in technology affinity resulting in potentially biased usability ratings on scales like the SUS.

As digital media technology expands, so does the need for an instrument capable of measuring how human psychology interacts with it.The Digital Media Overuse Scale (dMOS) is a new instrument designed to index problematic overuse of digital media while remaining capable of adapting to changes in the digital media landscape as they emerge.The dMOS is modularly structured, meaning that each domain contains highly similar language reflecting behaviors and attitudes often observed in individuals reporting clinical issues or disorders related to digital media.Here the dMOS was used to investigate clinically relevant behaviors and attitudes as they relate to five digital media domains: general smartphone use, internet video consumption, social media use, gaming, and pornography use.Latent class analysis was conducted on data from 800 college-aged dMOS respondents.Latent class analysis revealed-two to three latent classes for each digital media domain, with notable differences.There was little indication of an overall "digital media overuse" profile, but instead, domain-specific patterns of overuse likely reflect design differences in technologies interacting with human psychology.Initial indications are that the dMOS is a reliable, valid, and extendible clinical instrument capable of providing clinically relevant scores within and across digital media domains.A manual for interpreting subject-level data from the dMOS is being produced, and replicative extensions of the questionnaire into new domains are underway.

Child DevelopmentEarly View COMMENTARY Commentary on the scientific rigor of Sen and Gredebäck's simulation: Why empirical parameters are necessary to build simulations Kimberly Cuevas, Corresponding Author Kimberly Cuevas [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0003-1811-1131 University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA Correspondence Kimberly Cuevas, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorScott A. Adler, Scott A. Adler orcid.org/0000-0001-6795-1239 York University, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaSearch for more papers by this authorRachel Barr, Rachel Barr Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia, USASearch for more papers by this authorJohn Colombo, John Colombo University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USASearch for more papers by this authorPeter Gerhardstein, Peter Gerhardstein orcid.org/0000-0002-4500-5150 Binghamton University, State University of New York, Binghamton, New York, USASearch for more papers by this authorHarlene Hayne, Harlene Hayne Curtin University, Perth, AustraliaSearch for more papers by this authorPamela S. Hunt, Pamela S. Hunt College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, USASearch for more papers by this authorRick Richardson, Rick Richardson University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, AustraliaSearch for more papers by this author Kimberly Cuevas, Corresponding Author Kimberly Cuevas [email protected] orcid.org/0000-0003-1811-1131 University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA Correspondence Kimberly Cuevas, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA. Email: [email protected]Search for more papers by this authorScott A. Adler, Scott A. Adler orcid.org/0000-0001-6795-1239 York University, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaSearch for more papers by this authorRachel Barr, Rachel Barr Georgetown University, Washington, District of Columbia, USASearch for more papers by this authorJohn Colombo, John Colombo University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USASearch for more papers by this authorPeter Gerhardstein, Peter Gerhardstein orcid.org/0000-0002-4500-5150 Binghamton University, State University of New York, Binghamton, New York, USASearch for more papers by this authorHarlene Hayne, Harlene Hayne Curtin University, Perth, AustraliaSearch for more papers by this authorPamela S. Hunt, Pamela S. Hunt College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, USASearch for more papers by this authorRick Richardson, Rick Richardson University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, AustraliaSearch for more papers by this author First published: 23 December 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14062 This commentary was written in tribute to Carolyn Rovee-Collier (1942–2014) as a humble effort to highlight some of the issues she would have raised, although her retort would have been more poignant and eloquent! Carolyn never assumed “young infants could learn or remember,” rather it was an empirical question that carefully designed empirical research addressed. 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With the continued growth of digital device use, a greater portion of the visual world experienced daily by many people has shifted towards digital environments. The "oblique effect" denotes a bias for horizontal and vertical (canonical) contours over oblique contours, which is derived from a disproportionate exposure to canonical content. Carpentered environments have been shown to possess proportionally more canonical than oblique contours, leading to perceptual bias in those who live in "built" environments. Likewise, there is potential for orientation sensitivity to be shaped by frequent exposure to digital content. The potential influence of digital content on the oblique effect was investigated by measuring the degree of orientation anisotropy from a range of digital scenes using Fourier analysis. Content from popular cartoons, video games, and social communication websites was compared to real-life nature, suburban, and urban scenes. Findings suggest that digital content varies widely in orientation anisotropy, but pixelated video games and social communication websites were found to exhibit a degree of orientation anisotropy substantially exceeding that observed in all measured categories of real-world environments. Therefore, the potential may exist for digital content to induce an even greater shift in orientation bias than has been observed in previous research. This potential, and implications of such a shift, is discussed.

There is considerable evidence that adults can prevent attentional capture by physically salient stimuli via proactive inhibition. A key question is whether young children can also inhibit salient stimuli to prevent visual distraction. The current study directly compared attentional capture in children (M-age = 5.5 years) and adults (M-age = 19.3 years) by measuring overt eye movements. Participants searched for a target shape among heterogeneous distractor shapes and attempted to ignore a salient color singleton distractor. The destination of first saccades was used to assess attentional capture by the salient distractor, providing a more direct index of attentional allocation than prior developmental studies. Adults were able to suppress saccades to the singleton distractor, replicating previous studies. Children, however, demonstrated no such oculomotor suppression; first saccades were equally likely to be directed to the singleton distractor and nonsingleton distractors. Subsequent analyses indicated that children were able to suppress the distractor, but this occurred approximately 550 ms after stimulus presentation. The current results suggest that children possess some level of top-down control over visual attention, but this top-down control is delayed compared with adults. Development of this ability may be related to executive functions, which include goal-directed behavior such as organized search and impulse control as well as preparatory and inhibitory cognitive functions. (C) 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

When differential outcomes follow correct responses to each of multiple to-be-learned associations between a sample stimulus and a comparison stimulus (the differential outcomes procedure, DOP), performance is significantly better in comparison with when the associated stimuli and the outcomes are matched randomly (the non-differential outcomes procedure, NOP). In the present study we aimed to explore the effects of using the DOP versus the NOP in participants performing an eye-movement version of the matching-to-sample task. In the first phase, participants were presented with a sample stimulus followed by an associated comparison stimulus, and then a third stimulus served as the outcome that was presented according to the DOP or NOP scheme. In the second phase, after the sample stimulus, a comparison stimulus display was presented containing the associated stimulus (i.e., the relevant stimulus associated with the sample stimulus), the non-associated stimulus (i.e., the irrelevant stimulus associated with the other sample stimulus), and two distractor stimuli. Eye movements were recorded for each type of comparison stimulus. When we compared the pattern of eye movements between the DOP and NOP, we observed a tendency to produce a lower number of refixations to the associated comparison stimulus and a significant higher number of refixations to the non-associated and distractor comparison stimuli in the DOP compared to the NOP. These results suggest that in the first phase of the DOP, during each sample-comparison trial, the non-presented sample-comparison pair was inhibited, requiring more glances for identification during the second phase. Here we provide first evidence for the role of inhibitory processes in the context of the DOP.

Visual perception depends fundamentally on statistical regularities in the environment to make sense of the world. One such regularity is the orientation anisotropy typical of natural scenes; most natural scenes contain slightly more canonical (horizontal and vertical) information than oblique information. This property is likely a primary cause of the oblique effect in which subjects experience greater perceptual fluency with horizontally and vertically oriented content than oblique. Recent changes in the visual environment, including the “carpentered” content in urban scenes and the framed, caricatured content in digital screen media presentations, may have altered the typical (natural) level of orientation anisotropy. The current work evaluated whether digital visual experience, or visual experience with framed digital content, has the potential to alter the magnitude of the oblique effect in visual perception. Experiment 1 successfully established a novel eye-tracking method capable of indexing the visual oblique effect quickly and reliably and demonstrated the oblique effect. Experiment 2 used this method and found that one session of exposure to a specific video game altered visual orientation perception. Taken together, these results indicate that exposure to the realistic, but caricatured scene statistics of digital screen media, can alter visual contour perception in one session.

Biederman and Cooper (Cognitive Psychology, 23, 393-419, 1991), using parts-deleted and features-deleted stimuli, presented evidence that object priming occurs at the level of the objects' parts, but not features. A control condition confirmed that some priming was accrued by the (non-visual) object concept that the stimulus represented, but all visual-level priming appeared to be at the more global level of the parts of objects, rather than the local level of the individual features (edges, vertices). This outcome has long been viewed as an important piece of supporting evidence for the existence of structural descriptions (e.g., Biederman, Psychological Review, 94, 115, 1987). The original report used a naming response task, and concluded that stimuli presenting half of the parts of an object primed only those parts, whereas half-features-deleted stimuli primed both themselves and the "complementary" half, containing the features deleted from the first image, equally. The current study adapts an eye-tracking approach to enable examination of the time course of priming across an exposure to both the primed image and unprimed competitors. Parts-deleted images primed themselves quickly and exclusively, replicating the finding of Biederman and Cooper (1991). Features-deleted images showed a deviation across time, however; initially a features-deleted prime attracted looking to itself and to its complement equally, but later on, looking to the target deviated upward, demonstrating an ability to distinguish between the two versions. The outcome of the present tests provide support for the primacy of a structural parts description, while also demonstrating the existence of multiple types of representations, both global and local.

Multiple factors influence imitation during toddlerhood, including task complexity, social contingency, and individual differences. We conducted a secondary data analysis of individual differences in self-generated labelling using data collected from a complex puzzle imitation task with 355 2- to 3-year-olds. This analysis indicated that toddlers' ability to label the completed puzzle (fish or boat) was associated with better imitation performance. Labelling occurs during social interactions; therefore, our second analysis tested how labelling differed as a function of the level of social scaffolding in each condition. This analysis revealed that self-generated labelling was lower when the social demonstrator was removed and the task was presented on a touchscreen. This study is one of the first to examine self-generated labelling during a complex imitation task in toddlers and increases our understanding of the complexity of memory processing needed for imitation learning. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject? Toddlers exhibit a transfer of learning deficit from 2D media, including books, TV, and tablets. Self-generated labelling enhances children's learning, through attentional and cognitive mechanisms. Children are sensitive to reduced social cues in screen media contributing to the transfer deficit. What does this study add? Self-generated labelling is associated with better goal imitation performance. Self-generated labelling occurs more frequently under social conditions.

Multiple factors influence imitation during toddlerhood, including task complexity, social contingency, and individual differences. We conducted a secondary data analysis of individual differences in self-generated labelling using data collected from a complex puzzle imitation task with 355 2- to 3-year-olds. This analysis indicated that toddlers’ ability to label the completed puzzle (fish or boat) was associated with better imitation performance. Labelling occurs during social interactions; therefore, our second analysis tested how labelling differed as a function of the level of social scaffolding in each condition. This analysis revealed that self-generated labelling was lower when the social demonstrator was removed and the task was presented on a touchscreen. This study is one of the first to examine self-generated labelling during a complex imitation task in toddlers and increases our understanding of the complexity of memory processing needed for imitation learning. What is already known on this subject? What does this study add?

Typically developing (TD) children exhibit a transfer deficit imitating significantly less from screen demonstrations compared to a live demonstrations. Although many interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) include video materials, little research exists comparing the effectiveness of video demonstration over live instruction. The current study compared imitation learning from live and screen-based demonstrations of how to make a puzzle by 3- to 4.5-year-old TD children (n = 68) and children with ASD (n = 17). Children were tested on either on a three-dimensional (3D) magnet board (MB) with magnetic puzzle pieces or a 2D touch screen (TS) with virtual puzzle pieces. Neither TD nor ASD children exhibited a transfer deficit suggesting that for this task, the transfer deficit ends around 3 years of age. Children with ASD were less efficient overall than TD children on the task and performed worse than their TD counterparts when they were tested with the 3D MB puzzle. These findings suggest that children with ASD have greater difficulty acting on 3D objects than 2D TSs. Future studies should investigate if TSs can be used to teach children with ASD other tasks (184 words).

Hadad and colleagues (2010) found that the developmental trajectory for processing of illusory contours extends through early childhood, reaching adult-like levels in adolescence. Processing these contours requires interpolation between inducing elements, but assessing interpolation strength has been limited in prior tests (Shipley & Kellman, 1992). In the present study, visual processing of illusory contours in adults and 3- to 9-year-old children was examined using a gaze-contingent visual search task performed using eye-tracking. Participants were presented with inducer arrays; four inducers were arranged to display an illusory square, while others were randomly oriented. Arrays were presented with a set size of 4, 8, or 12 possible target locations. Inducer support ratios (a function of inducer size and spacing) ranged from 0.1 to 0.5. Saccades to the target were used to calculate response accuracy and timing. We also measured search efficiency by evaluating both reaction time across set size to locate the illusory target shape, and the time of participants’ initiation of first saccades directed toward the target-defined area of interest. In a follow-up analysis, we sought to determine whether the illusory shape preattentively captured attention immediately after the initial saccade, particularly in children. Adults were considerably more accurate in detecting the illusory shape overall, and accuracy improved with age in children. Accuracy improved with increasing support ratio and this pattern was similar across adults and children. Adults demonstrated clear levels of preattentive detection in that they produced more first saccades to the target than children at most support ratios. Gaze contingent eye-tracking effectively measures attention processes; therefore, our data provide a more precise description of the development of illusory contour perception. This saccadic analysis extends findings and overcomes previous limitations by highlighting instances of maximum interpolation strength as assessed using eye-tracking and underscores prolonged development of contour perception in children.

The Global Precedence Effect (GPE) describes a visual phenomenon in which adults are biased to perceive the global or holistic aspect of an image first before processing local information (Navon, 1977). Developmental research shows evidence of a local bias during early childhood (Poirel et al. 2014) that becomes global (Dukette & Stiles,1996; Kimchi et al. 2005) with age, through research disagrees on when this occurs (Hupp & Souther, 2014; Kramer et al.; Poirel et al., 2014; Scherf et al. 2009). Findings suggest that experimental factors such as task and stimuli manipulations may lead to these differing conclusions. The current study investigates the GPE in 4-year-olds, and investigates whether an instructional manipulation can influence the emergence of the effect. Four-year-olds were shown pairs of global shapes made up of local shapes. Pairs could be identical, or differ on either the global or local level. During Phase I, children were verbally asked if image pairs were “exactly the same in every way” or “different in any way”. In Phase II, in addition to the verbal prompts, children were shown a visual instructional sequence that explained what “exactly the same” or “different in any way” meant with regards to the local and global differences. Results show that 4-year-olds display a significant bias towards the local level, meaning that they were more likely to notice differences on the local level compared to the global level. After the instructional sequence, children showed less local bias and a higher global bias. This suggests that instructions, practice, and verbal manipulations may have an impact on the bias children show in GPE tests and that the switchover from local to global biases may occur earlier than the previously suggested age of 6 years.

BACKGROUND:Pain is a multidimensional condition of multiple origins. Determining both intensity and underlying cause are critical for effective management. Utilization of painkillers does not follow any guidelines relying on biomarkers, which effectively eliminates objective treatment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the use of serum cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) as pain biomarkers. This work could significantly advance the diagnosis and treatment of pain.METHODS:We assessed the potential utility of serum COX-2 and iNOS as objective measures of pain in a sample of American patients. Pain was scaled between level 0-5 in accordance with the level reported by the patients. Blood samples were collected from 102 patients in the emergency room. Sandwich ELISA was used to determine the COX-2 and iNOS levels in the blood serum while statistical analysis was performed using Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients, Regression and Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analyses. The biomarker results were also compared with self-reports of pain by the patients using conventional pain ratings and patients were asked to report the cause of the pain. Pain levels were clustered into four groups as 0 [self-reported 0], 1 [self-reported as 1], 2 [self-reported as 2 and 3] and 3 [self-reported as 4 and 5]. Co-expression of COX-2 and iNOS could significantly alter pain development and its sensitization. Therefore, iNOS dependent COX-2 levels were employed as categorized level.RESULTS:Self-reported pain levels did not show a correlation with the serum level of COX-2 and iNOS. The lack of correlation is attributed to multiple reasons including patients' intake of painkillers prior to participation, painkiller intake habit, chronic diseases, and subjectivity of self-reported pain. Increased serum COX-2 levels were reported in relation to the subtypes of these health issues. Further, 83% of the patients who reported pain also showed the presence of COX-2 in serum, while only 53% of the patients showed the presence of iNOS in serum. Moderate relation was found between the clustered pain level and categorized COX-2 and iNOS- levels.CONCLUSIONS:The findings support the requirement of further studies to use COX-2 and iNOS as prognostic biomarkers for objective quantification of pain at the clinical level.

Pain is one of the most common and distressing symptoms reported by emergency room patients. Valid and reliable assessment of pain is essential for both clinical trials and effective pain management. A major limitation of automatic pain assessment by the facial expression is the lack of clinically validated data. This work aims at collecting a pain expression database for pain intensity analysis in clinical settings. The database includes 140 color video sequences, 140 multi-sensor sequences obtained by the Kinect 2, patients' sequence-level self-report, Cyclooxygenases (COXs) level, and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) level in the blood samples. The database also includes head poses and derived facial landmarks from the 2D video. The relationships of their self-report, Cyclooxygenases (COXs), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), head pose and facial expression are analyzed. The correlation between the clinical and non-clinical pain facial expressions have been evaluated as well.