Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, USA.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2019 Jul;183:100-114. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.01.016. Epub 2019 Mar 11.
Changes in the body over developmental time (e.g., physical growth) as well as over shorter timescales (e.g., wearing a backpack, carrying a large object) alter possibilities for motor action. How well can children recalibrate their perception of action possibilities to account for sudden changes to body size? The current study compared younger children (4-7 years), older children (8-11 years), and adults as they decided whether they could squeeze through doorways of varying widths. To test for age-related changes in recalibration to modified abilities versus perception of unmodified abilities, half of the participants wore a backpack while making judgments and squeezing through doorways and half did not. Results indicated that judgment accuracy improved with age but that participants had more difficulty when recalibrating to modified abilities. Bias in decision making also changed with age; whereas younger children made riskier decisions by attempting to fit through impossibly small doorways, older children were more cautious. Some particularly cautious participants never generated practice feedback by attempting (and failing) to fit through smaller doorways, which prevented them from recalibrating. Taken together with previous literature, the results of the current study suggest that the development of perception for unmodified versus modified ability proceeds at different rates and depends on the particular motor task.
身体在发育过程中（例如，身体生长）以及较短时间内（例如，背背包、携带大物体）的变化会改变运动动作的可能性。儿童如何能够很好地重新调整他们对动作可能性的感知，以适应身体大小的突然变化？本研究比较了年幼的儿童（4-7 岁）、年长的儿童（8-11 岁）和成年人，他们判断自己是否可以挤过不同宽度的门道。为了测试年龄相关的重新调整对修改后的能力和未修改的能力的感知的变化，一半的参与者在做出判断和挤过门时戴着背包，另一半则不戴。结果表明，判断准确性随着年龄的增长而提高，但参与者在重新调整到修改后的能力时遇到了更多的困难。决策中的偏差也随着年龄的变化而变化；而年幼的孩子通过尝试挤过不可能小的门道做出了更冒险的决策，而年长的孩子则更加谨慎。一些特别谨慎的参与者从未通过尝试（并失败）挤过较小的门道来产生实践反馈，这阻止了他们进行重新调整。结合以前的文献，本研究的结果表明，对未修改和修改后的能力的感知的发展以不同的速度进行，并取决于特定的运动任务。
