Yanaoka Kaichi, Saito Satoru
Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Yoshida-honmachi, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan; Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Chiyoda-ku, 5-3-1 Kojimachi, Tokyo 102-0083, Japan.
Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Yoshida-honmachi, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2017 Nov;163:87-106. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.06.008.
The execution of a script often requires detecting and resolving conflict with a goal, particularly in nonroutine situations. To take the example of taking a bus daily to work, if someone's usual bus is delayed and a bus for another destination comes first, the person must inhibit taking it and wait for the usual one. Young children can gradually acquire the ability to control the execution of scripts in such nonroutine situations, but few studies have explored the control process involved. In two experiments, we investigated the role of developments in the maintenance of hierarchical goal representations and in executive functions. We measured the ability to control the execution of scripts using a task in which children helped a doll select items to wear; clothing options were presented in an unexpected order in the nonroutine situations. The younger children (4-year-olds) could not flexibly control their execution of scripts in nonroutine situations, although they could exogenously detect and resolve conflict if they were prompted to maintain a subgoal. The older children (5-year-olds) endogenously controlled script execution based on a main goal, whereas subgoal maintenance led them to rigidly control their performance. In addition, children's inhibition abilities were associated with their control of script execution. These findings indicate that the development of the control process underlying the execution of scripts in nonroutine situations is partially dependent on the ability to maintain hierarchical goal representations.
执行一个脚本通常需要检测并解决与目标的冲突，尤其是在非常规情况下。以每天乘公交车上班为例，如果某人平常乘坐的公交车晚点了，而一辆开往其他目的地的公交车先来了，这个人必须抑制乘坐这辆车的冲动，等待平常坐的那辆车。幼儿能够逐渐获得在这种非常规情况下控制脚本执行的能力，但很少有研究探讨其中涉及的控制过程。在两项实验中，我们研究了发展在维持分层目标表征和执行功能方面所起的作用。我们使用一项任务来测量控制脚本执行的能力，在这项任务中，孩子们帮助一个玩偶选择要穿的物品；在非常规情况下，服装选项以意想不到的顺序呈现。年幼的孩子（4岁）在非常规情况下无法灵活地控制他们的脚本执行，尽管如果有人提示他们维持一个子目标，他们可以外源性地检测并解决冲突。年长的孩子（5岁）基于主要目标内源性地控制脚本执行，而子目标维持导致他们严格地控制自己的表现。此外，孩子们的抑制能力与他们对脚本执行的控制有关。这些发现表明，在非常规情况下执行脚本背后的控制过程的发展部分取决于维持分层目标表征的能力。
