Why Toddlers Don't Do What They're Told 412
Hugh Pickens writes "New cognitive research shows that 3-year-olds neither plan for the future nor live completely in the present, but instead call up the past as they need it. 'There is a lot of work in the field of cognitive development that focuses on how kids are basically little versions of adults trying to do the same things adults do, but they're just not as good at it yet. What we show here is they are doing something completely different,' says professor Yuko Munakata at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Munakata's team used a computer game and a setup that measures the diameter of the pupil of the eye to determine mental effort to study the cognitive abilities of 3-and-a-half-year-olds and 8-year-olds. The research concluded that while everything you tell toddlers seems to go in one ear and out the other, the study found that toddlers listen, but then store the information for later use. 'For example, let's say it's cold outside and you tell your 3-year-old to go get his jacket out of his bedroom and get ready to go outside,' says doctoral student Christopher Chatham. 'You might expect the child to plan for the future, think "OK it's cold outside so the jacket will keep me warm." But what we suggest is that this isn't what goes on in a 3-year-old's brain. Rather, they run outside, discover that it is cold, and then retrieve the memory of where their jacket is, and then they go get it.'"
Re:Oh (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep or pretty much anything with an organic brain.
Attempt > Feedback > Store > Next Attempt
And that's different how? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, given how many times I've walked outside, discovered it was cold, then remembered where my jacket is, I don't see how that process is any different from the average person. I propose a new theory to explain why a toddler would run outside before getting their jacket, Toddlers don't have weather ESP.
As for the whole in one ear and out the other thing, that's not unique to toddlers by any means. Ask any parent of a teenager, or a kid between toddler and teenager, or the teacher of a lazy college student. Where did the idea of toddlers being the only humans like that come from?
Re:And that's different how? (Score:3, Insightful)
Lacking in Sardonic Tone (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And that's different how? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think this research is meant to show a couple of things of import that you are seeming to gloss over in your criticism.
For one, the difference between a lazy teenager ignoring what their parents told them and a toddler doing the same thing is that a lazy teenager IS choosing to ignore their parents - there is nothing different going on in their brains, they just don't want to do what they are told.
A toddler, on the other hand, literally CAN'T do what they are told in certain instances, because they don't have the same thought process that adults have (which is what this research is trying to show). It's not that they are choosing to ignore their parents, they just don't have the reasoning capability at that age to comprehend complex conditional statements like "When I tell you it is cold outside get a jacket"
I think the point of the research is that many parents expect things from their very young children that are just not possible. They think their kid is being stubborn or misbehaving when it is just developmental. So many parents get frustrated and angry at their child when they should just realize that they just have to wait for the kid to grow up a bit.
kids and AI's... (Score:5, Insightful)
it makes one ponder how one approach the development of AI's to.
sounds a bit like they are building up a bayesian database of conditions and actions, going more and more specific over time.
like say how cold at first will just be a generic sense of temperature thats uncomfortable (thanks to it driving the surface temperature of the outer skin below whats healthy for the cells that makes up the skin). then later one add specifics like snow on the ground, ice and other indicators. as more of these shows up, one get a stronger sense that its cold outside, and that again triggers conditioned reflexes like wearing thick clothing.
so, to turn this over to AI research, the approach may well be to start with a blank database and a collection of sensors and outputs. then one pile on a generic bayesian filter, and leave it running.
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:4, Insightful)
You're pretty stupid. Science is methodological and precise to avoid relying on "common sense" because common sense often is not actually correct. Also, it's often easy for you to see ahead of time that this seemed obvious, but in fact was not. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection? Seems obvious to us now (although given the stupidity of your post I wouldn't doubt if you deny it!) but in fact took quite a long time for us to get a good theory of evolution down. Hell, it took a long time to get rid of phlogiston and the ether and "animal spirits." It took us an Einstein to get relativity!
This discovery has very applicable uses, particularly in the general processes of the cognitive processes of toddlers, brain development, and memory storage and retrieval.
Academics, practicing science, are more in the "real world" than you are, because they need rigor and experimentation. It seems anecdote and casual observation is good enough for you.
Neanderthal? (Score:4, Insightful)
That Neanderthal comparison continuation at the bottom of the article may not be accurate. For one, we don't know if they had language. Their voice box does not appear as developed as ours, but they may have used sign-language, which may be better for hunting than verbal. And they were not necessarily "more emotional". We just don't know.
Sounds like a good system (Score:4, Insightful)
I really wanted to link to The Onion's "Study Reveals: Babies Are Stupid," but this is a far more critical and analytic approach to problems than most people tend to use. Blindly following rules is a horrible way to learn about anything. The best learners, in my experience, take advice into consideration, then try to see if it's good advice, and discover why or why not. Applied to the example from the summary, the kid who thinks "is it really that cold outside? Yes it is, I'll go get my coat" is going to turn out a lot better than the kid who goes straight for the coat, especially at times when the authority figures are wrong.
Re:kids and AI's... (Score:5, Insightful)
I second the motion. I'm learning more about AI by watching my daughter grow up than any academic experience. She's 19 months old now, and it's been a true education for me to see what is learned behavior and what is innate. [slashdot.org]
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they're not. They "merely" apply science to specific well-known problems.
Absolutely not! If we went by your standard of evidence, we would consider there to be a mountain of evidence that the Sun goes around the Earth. Nowadays it's easy to see that it's the other way round, but if we went by your standard of evidence it's doubtful that our collective scientific knowledge would actually have gotten far enough to discover that.
You're no scientist and have no idea what scientists actually do.
Re:kids and AI's... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always thought this is a problem with AI development.
It takes 6 years of constant learning on the part of an incredibly complex intelligence software (us) to become relatively functional.
And yet we drive a computer around a parking lot for 10 minutes and then give up in frustration.
Language skills take decades to develop. Walking and balance take decades to develop. If we really want to be serious about learning systems we need one that can learn for years on end. Clone it. Then start selectively breeding those AIs which perform best.
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe so, but weak empirical evidence. Even if you're completely accurate in describing what you see, and that assumption is often a stretch, your conditions are likely not controlled enough to isolate anything in particular--and it may conflict with what somebody ELSE sees, which opens a completely different can of worms.
It sounds like in your line of work, simply knowing that the blueprint you got handed won't work in the real world is enough. That's perfectly fine; everybody is concerned with different particulars depending on their own perspective. What you have is a conclusion: "No, you're an idiot. This is faulty." From your perspective that's important. From a scientist (or engineer's), it's a starting point: "Why is this faulty? What can we learn from it? How can we avoid the same mistake later?" Neither of you are wrong, neither of you are wasting your time, but at the same time if you two swapped positions everything would likely go to hell pretty quick.
Anecdote and casual observation are great things to direct us on what we need to study rigorously; they're not a study in themselves.
True, but that's not what this is. Hao Wu basically said (paraphrasing) "parents have known this for ages, if scientists could get any they would have known too!"
Aside from being a bit of a douchebag, his statement isn't particularly rigorous. Parents have known WHAT for ages? That children don't listen? That little kids have particular trouble listening? That's spectacular, and it's a good jumping-off point for exactly the kind of study that was done -- but it's not particularly meaningful in itself. I noticed the sky looks blue, too; that's meaningless as well. Somebody coming along and telling me about white light and wavelengths and giving me the reason WHY it's blue can be important. It chains a statement like "the sky is blue" into any number of potential discussions ranging from anatomy to physics to meteorology.
Knowing that little kids have trouble listening is interesting, and frankly even people without kids have observed that (making the little pot-shot comment about scientists not having kids distasteful,) but what's more interesting is to know WHY--the study seems to be pushing the idea that it's literally a functional difference in their brain. That's cool. Can we do anything about it? That might be useful. Why does it happen and what changes as they age that makes it stop? That might be useful too, in any number of applications and particularly for people who have any sort of learning disorders that we might find have similar physical causes and might respond to similar treatments. Is this just a lack of life experiences, or are we literally altering the way the brain works as we get older?
What your parent poster said was correct: Science is necessary to validate our observations because so many things we have "known" to be true have turned out to be false. I'm not big on name calling, and wouldn't have taken that tact myself, but saying that science wastes its time by studying things we "know" does seem illogical at best.
Re:And that's different how? (Score:3, Insightful)
"A toddler, on the other hand, literally CAN'T do what they are told in certain instances, because they don't have the same thought process that adults have (which is what this research is trying to show). It's not that they are choosing to ignore their parents, they just don't have the reasoning capability at that age to comprehend complex conditional statements like "When I tell you it is cold outside get a jacket""
I agree completeley with this statement but I also but it also doesn't merely apply to toddlers, adults push their adult expectations on children when it is inappropriate to do so given their developmental level all around, which is the cause of much dysfunction in our society at large, and lots of wounds and rifts within a family.
People really don't understand how clueless they really are in some respects, and I'm glad scientists are finally getting around to exposing the truth of a lot of bad parenting advice.
But I realize that even the best science can't get around the fact that some kids have different nature's, some kids are inherently self destructive and have "problem behaviours" due to their biology or some neurological condition not yet understood (aspergers, and such, comes to mind), which clearly have neurological underpinnings but the data is studies are still being done because a lot of work is still in it's infancy.
Let's also not forget, that people function differently at the neurological level, and when they encounter peolpe that don't function like themselves or seem to be "missing" certain functions, they often don't realize - that the are simply to not process the world or experience it in the same way as what they are used to... and such people are labelled/ostracized/teased/bullied/whatever for that.
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:5, Insightful)
When future parents are awaiting their first child, I hope they spend some time to learn how to handle small children.
They can study it all they want, memorizing countless tomes of wisdom on parenting, and it still won't adequately prepare them for parenting. Nothing but the actual experience of raising a child yourself will prepare you for it, regardless of how intelligence you might be. This introduces a bit of a problem, as you probably interpret this idea to mean that no parent on this planet knows what they're doing until they learn from mistakes made along the way.
On that, you'd be absolutely right.
Re:Oh (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, science is all about gut feelings. Why bother researching anything when we already know what the answers will be. We already know God created the universe in 7 days, why the hell are we wasting billions of dollars on astronomy, biology and physics?
Obvious but often disregarded (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm always angered when I see young mothers in the street letting their toddlers get 20 or 30 yards ahead or behind with no thought for the consequences. If that kid decides to run in the road, there is no way to get there in time. I've almost run over a kid like that - ran straight out from behind a parked car. Fortunately for all concerned I had already seen the kid as it disappeared behind the car. The father gave me a filthy look as I slammed the brakes on, and I was really tempted to get out and hammer him. Why should I suffer the (undeserved) guilt of killing a kid if the father was to blame. Apparently I'm supposed to care more about the kid than the parents do.
BTW, it was dark, the parked car was parked illegally, and I was driving about 20mph in a 30 mph limit. The road was 2 lanes and one way. If the kid had continued running after I stopped it would have been caught by the guy on my left passing me at higher speed.
When I was a kid my parents kept me on reins so I was never more than 2 feet and a tug away. Parents these days seem to think that is treating your kids like a dog. Stupid people. You cannot guarantee your kids safety by training when they are too young to consider their actions. No matter how bright they are.
There is no fail safe with toddlers, you have to make sure there is no fail at all (as far as possible). It is not a matter of putting the big knife on a higher shelf, it is a matter of locking the big knife away. Don't hide the gun in a shoebox, lock the gun away. Etc.
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:1, Insightful)
Learning to parent is pretty much like learning anything else. It's helpful to combine book learning with apprentice-type experience (read: be around babies a lot a pay attention to what works and what does't) then; and then when you are doing it 'for real', stay open intellectually and emotionally and to the unique situation in front of you, draw as best as to can on the book- and apprentice-style learning, and be ready to change your theories, try new things and seek advice as often as possible.
So, I agree that many problems come from a lack of experience or lack of knowledge before parenting one's own children and many more come from a closed-minded approach after (thinking one's kid will be just like kids in the textbook, just like other kids, just like you, just like your ideal kid should be, etc ajd ignoring the actual kid in front of you).
Choosing 3.5yos was insightful (Score:4, Insightful)
As any parent will tell you, the "terrible twos" are a myth. It's the three-year-olds that have the potent combination of independent ability and lack of responsibility.
I think they should name this study in honor of Bill Cosby's "I dun-no!" sketches.
Re:Obvious but often disregarded (Score:3, Insightful)
If you literally mean "reins" as in a leash then yes, that is treating your kid like a dog.
It's called a hand. Learn to hold it.
What a sad little childhood you must have had. Never more than 2' from your parents, not getting to stop & explore things. I took my 2-year-old son for a walk yesterday through a park. He insisted on holding my hand, but had he let go, I would have let him roam some.
Re:And that's different how? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you (and a lot of posters here) are missing a basic point. Which is that you can have your own kids, observe them as much as you like or whatever, but unless you do a very careful and controlled experiment, you cannot distinguish what you think they are doing versus what is actually going on in their brain.
That is the difference that distinguishes science from superstition. The whole history of science is chock full of examples where reality turns out to be different from intuition. Even if your intuition is actually correct in this case, simply knowing for sure that your intuition is correct is useful knowledge. And without a doubt, there are some details about the functioning of your child's brain where your intuition is completely wrong. The process of science is figuring out exactly what that is.
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:2, Insightful)
Spoken as an only child and a parent. :)
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:4, Insightful)
Concerning behavioral research (my career has nothing particular to do with this, I'm a molecular biologist concerned with early brain development), there are repeatedly studies presented here on /. with crappy conclusions (and good commentaries from the /. crowd).
When you say "crappy conclusions," do you mean conclusions that are poorly supported by the evidence, or conclusions that are well supported by the evidence but not that interesting, or what?
I've rarely seen much in the way of good commentaries on science from the crowd here. Sometimes a few people who actually know the area in question will post some insightful comments. But the rest generally respond to the popular report that's been posted, which almost invariably misses the point of the research. I'd be curious to hear what most Slashdotters think the take-home message was meant to be from the study under discussion here.
As a behavioral researcher, I certainly sympathize with your contempt for the field. But at the same time, I think there are good reasons to ask scientific questions that involve behavior (even more so neurology). The fact that some people do it poorly doesn't change that, nor does the fact that some people prefer an extreme reductionist approach.
Re:Oh (Score:5, Insightful)
So children learn by DOING, I get it.
That's a nice summary, but can you describe the cognitive mechanisms by which they "learn by doing" and how that relates to brain development? I bet you can't without doing a study-- at least not in a way that provides anything but conjecture.
Re:This is really old news (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I think that is rubbish.
The pain response has been around for quite a while and is designed specifically to say to us... "That thing you just did... it was dangerous and damaging, DON'T do it again!!". I cannot believe that toddlers are somehow hardwired *not* to follow this piece of sensory advice. I am not a student of this subject, but it just makes good logical sense that there is a part of the brain (active at birth) that does the job of avoiding the repetition of actions that previously generated a painful response.
For this reason, I support so called 'corporal punishment' as a tool for parents to hijack this process to teach kids to avoid behaviors where the end result might otherwise not simply provide a quick 'sting' (like running out into the road), or behaviors that break more complicated rules (like stealing). You certainly cannot reason with children this young and expect them to understand, but you can hijack a basic evolutionary mechanism and use it to your own (and the child's) advantage.
Of course, there is a huge difference between a quick smack to the bottom to instill a sense of danger that is mentally linked with a given action and actually beating children in a way that causes lasting damage. The former is effective, proactive parenting, the latter should be punished to the full extent of the law.
That's What IT Guys Do, Too (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Obvious but often disregarded (Score:3, Insightful)
As duffbeer wrote above about dogs on leashes:
Personally I've never felt a need to go beyond holding my 2 year old's hand to manage him outside his stroller. In the mall, he'll either hold my hand or stay close enough that it's not a problem (when it's really crowded, we give him a choice of holding hands or riding in the stroller). In our neighborhood, he knows that the sidewalk is his limit, and stops at the grass strip between the curb and the concrete. If we're not out for a walk and instead just playing in the front yard, he'd rather walk around to the backyard and see what's going on there. He's been doing this since he was 18 months old, last summer.
I read and hear all these stories about how people have to leash their kids, or their kids are completely unmanageable, or they have to be so tightly controlled that the parents are always within a 2 foot radius, I start wondering if I've failed as an American because I've succeeded thus far as a parent.
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course I meant conclusions that are poorly supported by the evidence. Conclusions that are not that interesting for me are simply not interesting for me, I do not use strong language to disapprove of them. (In this /. topic, there have been some comments of that kind: "I knew this anyway, why spend money on this research?" "Why do they not tackle The Real Problems(TM) instead?" Why are some comments so blatantly ignorant?)
Of course most comments are not that insightful (most are funny or crap or righteously false), but it are the few really great comments that get my attention. When learning something new, I usually focus on this great new insight, not on the crap surrounding it. ;)
I never denied this, I'm sorry if my comment was worded in an ambiguous way that allowed the suggestion of disapproval of your research area. In fact, I find behavioral research fascinating--and personal friendship with several psychologists lets me regularly discuss some studies or problems of that field. But I'm simply not very much into behavior. I have more than enough molecular biology papers on my desk(top) to read. ;)
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they're not. They "merely" apply science to specific well-known problems.
I take offense to that. Although a lot of engineering involves solving well-known problems, there's a good deal of "never-before-done, at the conceptual stage, we're not sure if it's even possible" problems. Yes, we still use well known physics in the design process, but calling us "not scientists" is a little bit like saying modern mathematicians are not mathematicians because all they're doing is applying well-known math to solve their new problems.
Good engineers apply the scientific method in their design process. When creating something nobody has done before, they examine previous work, they construct a "hypothesis" of how to best solve the problem, they perform tests and simulations to make sure their assumptions are correct, and then they analyze the data, draw a conclusion (create a plan), and build the thing.
if we went by your standard of evidence it's doubtful that our collective scientific knowledge would actually have gotten far enough
I agree with you in principle. You can't take anything for granted, common sense is often wrong. And that applies in engineering a LOT.
If we went by your standard of evidence, we would consider there to be a mountain of evidence that the Sun goes around the Earth. Nowadays it's easy to see that it's the other way round
However, you picked the worst example ever to make your point, because you just used a "common-sense, everyone thinks this is right, but technically it's not" example. It's not necessarily "wrong" to say the Sun goes around the Earth. It's inconvenient for calculations because the center of mass of the earth-sun system lies inside the Sun. It doesn't mean that you can't come up with an elaborate mathematical model with the Earth as the reference center of the solar system (and it has been done), it just means that you'll be doing too much damn work.
There's no absolute reference points in the universe. Picking the Sun as the center of the solar system is the equivalent of using the cylindrical coordinate system instead of the cartesian one for problems that make sense. Things get a whole lot easier, and the math is way simpler and more elegant.
Re:Thank you Einstein (Score:4, Insightful)
And I think the current study is indeed insightful, because I always become desperate when confronted with small children that simply don't listen to my arguments. Maybe I can use a different approach when handling kids in the future.
Here's a hint: don't make arguments, ask questions that lead the child to your point of view.
Children are (rightly so) a very curious bunch. They love questions; they love asking them and they usually enjoy being asked. I've had kids stop dead right in the middle of temper tantrums when posed with a sufficiently interesting question. You can just about see the gears turning in their heads.
When I want a kid to do something, I ask him a series of simple questions that he can answer with a little thinking, with each question bringing him closer to the realization I want him to have. Near the end, the connection is made and the child usually acts on his own volition. Sometimes a little amiable suggestion is also required.
This method requires a lot of patience, and it's not always possible or prudent for parents tasked with the 24/7 job of raising kids and who often find themselves at wit's end - but for childless people who only have to interact with children occasionally, it works like a charm.
With older (school-age) children, try explaining to them how other people feel about their actions, about the things they could do to make other people more amicable to their interests (and therefore get what they want). Kids really don't think about others - that's something that comes with teenagers (for some, later; for others, never) - so explaining to them how their actions could be tempered in order to ensure more smooth relations with others will often work (unless the kid is a stupid spoiled brat).
I've used that method to instruct kids on why their parents are angry with them, and what they could do to ameliorate that, or how what they are about to do (or trying to do) may end up with their parents getting angry with them. No child wants his parents pissed at him - it's pretty much the #1 aversion. You'd be surprised at how often the child just doesn't realize/think about these things, and when given reasonable advice, chooses to act in a reasonable manner.
Re:Oh (Score:4, Insightful)
If he doesn't - if his days are 1 million years long, then he should have said so. "On the first epoch, God created the earth....." There's no excuse for sloppy writing.
Re:Oh (Score:1, Insightful)
yeah cause anyone who spanks a child has it all wrong...
you can't just spank a child it must come as an escalation and if my parents were right it must be followed by a calmly spoken reason why you just got your ass whooped.
Simply smacking a kid only pisses them off and letting them run around the store while you repeatedly tell them to stop enforces there dominance over you.
Re:Oh (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oh (Score:4, Insightful)
Which results in entertainment for those of us that watch a really dumb parent trying to reason with that 3 year old.
It blows my mind how college educated people at a fancy restaurant are completely inept at something basic like child rearing. Explaining to a 3 year old that, " your behavior is disrupting to others and is unacceptable." Is an incredibly joke. you smack their bottom and say sternly, "NO!" a 3 year old does not understand 11th grade vocabulary. Yet it is out of their cognitive ability to understand this basic thing.
Re:Oh (Score:3, Insightful)
1. In the US, you still can. Some states limit it a bit, but yes, you still can.
Legally you can. Not a single child-rearing course or book written by anyone credible will recommend it. There is no science showing that a smack is productive, and in fact it seem to be counter-productive.
2. You seem to be trying to teach complete non-violence. Not everyone thinks the way you do.
What? I'm perfectly happy to teach my kid to defend herself, but not at age 3. They have absolutely no ability to discern between defense of a toy and defense from bodily harm. When an aggressive child does something to threaten her, I'm there to step in and she is never to do anything - and she knows it.
-1 incorrect (Score:4, Insightful)
As a native Hebrew speaker, let me correct the errors in your interpretation.
Please forgive the ad-hoc transliteration.
> Yowm means about four hundred years:
> Numbers 20:15 How our fathers went down into Egypt, and we have dwelt in Egypt a long time (yowm);
> and the Egyptians vexed us, and our fathers
The original text says "yamim rabim", literally: many days.
> Yowm means forty years:
> 1 Kings 11:42 And the time (yowm) that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel [was] forty years.
The original text says "ve-ha-yamim [...] arbaim shana", literally: and the days [...] forty years.
> Yowm means twenty years:
> 1 Samuel 7:2 And it came to pass, while the ark abode in Kirjathjearim,
> that the time (yowm) was long; for it was twenty years
The original text says "va-irbu ha-yamim, va-ihyu esrim shana", literally: the days multiplied until they became 20 years.
> Yowm means seven and a half years:
> 2 Samuel 2:11 And the time (yowm) that David was king in Hebron over the house of Judah was seven years and six months.
The original text says "va-yhi mispar ha-yamim [...]", literally: the number of the days was.
In short: "yom" (singular) is "day", approximately the time from sunset to sunrise.
"yamim" (plural) is "days", often used in the sense of "time" (in the same sense that the word "shanim" -- "years" is used).
> The words boqer and ereb are both used in other contexts as well. They are also used to mean beginning and end.
I'd like to see a reference to that. If possible, one that does not botch the translation.
And incidentally, evening is "erev", the Hebrew "Bet" (for B) and "Vet" (for V) are actually the same letter and the pronunciation depends on whether there's a dot ("dagesh") inside the letter. It is often omitted in modern practice and inferred from the context (same thing with most vowels), however it is present in the "official" text.
> The only thing we know for sure from this writings, is that there were distinct eras with a beginning and end. The rest is worded ambiguously.
Only if you misread the text. Otherwise, it is quite clear.
> You could argue that this was for the purpose of both making sense to the people of the time,
> and also being technically accurate at the same time.
Or I could argue that you were misled by a less than accurate translation.