This study was funded by the Hong Kong University Grants Committee's General Research Fund (845211) awarded to the corresponding author and the Shenzhen University research grant (85302-000173) awarded to the first author. We thank Ms Esther Chan for the data collection and the children and families participated in our study.

All methods described here have been approved by The Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) of The Education University of Hong Kong. Obtain written informed consent from a parent or a guardian for each child.
1. Introduction and Warm-up
<ol>
	<li>Introduce the child and the parent to the developmental psychology laboratory. Ensure that the child does not find out the hidden camcorder for video-recording or the adjacent observation room behind the one-way mirror. Let the individual child sit next to the experimenter at a child-sized table.</li>
	<li>Allow sufficient time for the child to get familiar and comfortable with the environment and the experimenter.</li>
	<li>Offer 3 attractive gifts for the child to pick the most desirable one. Tell the child the most desirable gift is the reward if he or she wins the following guessing game.</li>
	<li>Let the parent say, &#34;see you later&#34; to the child. Invite the parent to join an assistant in the adjacent observation room to observe the testing session behind the one-way mirror.</li>
</ol>
2. The Guessing Game
<ol>
	<li>Prepare three sets of hidden objects in opaque upside-down cups placed on grooved plates in advance, and keep them out of the child&#39;s sight. Hide a single toy in the first two sets, such as a toy car and a ping-pong ball. Fill the third cup with some rice and position it upside down on the grooved plate. Handle the rice cup with care to prevent accidental spill.</li>
	<li>Invite the child to play a guessing game with the experimenter: &#34;Let&#39;s play a guessing game.&#34; Present a cup positioned upside down on a grooved plate. Tell the child: &#34;There is an object hidden in the cup. You need to guess what it is correctly for three consecutive trials to win this game.&#34;</li>
	<li>For the first two trials, give relevant clues for the child to &#34;guess&#34; correctly, for example, &#34;What is the vehicle that runs on the road?&#34; for the toy car, or &#34;What is the thing you can play with a ping-pong paddle?&#34; for the ping-pong ball. Congratulate the child on two consecutive wins.</li>
	<li>On the final trial, present the cup with the hidden rice. Push the child&#39;s most desirable gift in front of the child and say: &#39;&#39;Now, we are going to play the last round of the guessing game. If you guess this one correctly, you will get this gift which you like the most; but you won&#39;t get it if you guess it wrong.&#34;</li>
	<li>Ensure that an assistant knock on the door of the laboratory at this exact instant, and ask the experimenter to exit the room for a moment.</li>
	<li>Tell the child: &#39;&#39;Do not lift the cup to peek. I&#39;ll be right back.&#34;&#160;Then leave the room.</li>
</ol>
3. The Transgression
NOTE: The rice in the third cup would scatter on the plate if the child lifts the cup. The textured grooves on the plate makes it impossible for children to remove the spilled rice completely, leaving physical evidence of the transgression.
<ol>
	<li>Observe the child&#39;s behavior behind the one-way mirror. If the child peeks, record the time duration between the moment the experimenter leaves the room and the moment the child starts to peek.</li>
	<li>Return to the room after 3 min if the child does not peek, or 1 min after the child starts to peek.</li>
</ol>
4. The Lie-telling Behavior
<ol>
	<li>Ask the child: &#39;&#39;While I was gone, did you lift the cup to see what is inside?&#34;, and wait for the child to respond.
	<ol>
		<li>If the child has not peeked, ask the child to guess what is inside the cup and reveal the content of the cup, then proceed to step 6.</li>
		<li>If the child has peeked and admits the transgression, tell the child, &#39;&#39;It was hard not to peek, wasn&#39;t it?&#34; and proceed to step 6.</li>
		<li>If the child has peeked and lies about peeking, that is, he/she answers &#39;&#39;No&#34; despite the obvious physical evidence of transgression, look at the spilled rice and say: &#39;&#39;How come the rice is outside the cup?&#34;, and then turn to the child and ask: &#39;&#39;Are you sure you didn&#39;t lift the cup to see what was inside?&#34;, and wait for the child to respond.</li>
	</ol>
	</li>
</ol>
5. The Strategic Lie-telling
<ol>
	<li>If the child confesses that he or she peeked, tell the child, &#39;&#39;It was hard not to peek, wasn&#39;t it?&#34; and proceed to step 6.</li>
	<li>If the child continues to deny having peeked after the previous steps, ask the follow-up question: &#39;&#39;So how did the rice&#160;get out of the cup?&#34;, and wait for the child to respond.</li>
</ol>
6. Debriefing
<ol>
	<li>Debrief the child. Tell the child that this is just a game, and it is normal for children to peek or lie in this game because it is very tempting. Give each child the promised gift at the end of the session regardless of his/her response in the temptation resistance task.</li>
	<li>Debrief the parents. Inform the parents that the protocol is specifically designed to elicit peeking and lying behavior in children, and around half of the children peek or lie. Explain to the parents that these behaviors reflect sophisticated cognitive development and social conduct, and they are not regarded as specifically negative or naughty in this context.</li>
</ol>
7. Data Processing and Coding
Note: Interrater reliability needs to be established for all mentioned coding of the responses.
<ol>
	<li>Transcribe video-recorded children&#39;s verbal responses verbatim for coding.</li>
	<li>Ensure that two independent coders code at least 20% of all the observations for establishing interrater reliability.</li>
	<li>For the coding of strategic lies, watch the video recordings of the observations and read the transcripts of children&#39;s responses to identify the involvement of intentions.</li>
	<li>Resolve discrepancies between the two independent coders through discussion. 
	NOTE: Children who did not lift the cup are coded as non-peekers, including those who simply touched the cup; children who lifted the cup are considered peekers. The peekers are further coded as truth tellers (those who admitted peeking) and liars (those who denied peeking). The liars&#39; explanations for the scattered rice are further coded into strategic lies and non-strategic lies. Strategic lies are plausible and refer to intention (e.g., &#39;&#39;I just touched the cup, but the rice&#160;came out&#34;). Non-strategic lies lack credibility and include unconvincing explanations (e.g. &#39;&#39;The rice came out by itself&#34;), silent responses, and the response of &#39;&#39;I don&#39;t know.&#34; Children are further categorized into four groups based on the level of transgression and lie: non-peekers, truth tellers, non-strategic liars, and strategic liars. </li>
</ol>

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D., Xu, F., Lee, K. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=When+all+signs+point+to+you:+lies+told+in+the+face+of+evidence.">When all signs point to you: lies told in the face of evidence.</a> Dev Psychol. 47 (1), 39-49 (2011).</li><li>Williams, S. M., Kirmayer, M., Simon, T., Talwar, V. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Children's+antisocial+and+prosocial+lies+to+familiar+and+unfamiliar+adults.">Children's antisocial and prosocial lies to familiar and unfamiliar adults.</a> Infant Child Dev. 22 (4), 430-438 (2013).</li><li>Talwar, V., Crossman, A. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=From+little+white+lies+to+filthy+liars:+The+evolution+of+honesty+and+deception+in+young+children.">From little white lies to filthy liars: The evolution of honesty and deception in young children.</a> Adv Child Dev Behav. 40, 139-179 (2011).</li><li>Piaget, J. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=.">.</a> The Moral Judgment of the Child. , (1965).</li><li>Lewis, M., Stanger, C., Sullivan, M. W. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Deception+in+3-year-olds.">Deception in 3-year-olds.</a> Dev Psychol. 25 (3), 439-443 (1989).</li><li>Polak, A., Harris, P. L. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Deception+by+young+children+following+noncompliance.">Deception by young children following noncompliance.</a> Dev Psychol. 35 (2), 561-568 (1999).</li><li>Talwar, V., Lee, K. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Emergence+of+white+lie-telling+in+children+between+3+and+7+years+of+age.">Emergence of white lie-telling in children between 3 and 7 years of age.</a> Merrill-Palmer Quart. 48 (2), 160-181 (2002).</li><li>Talwar, V., Lee, K. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Development+of+lying+to+conceal+a+transgression:+Children's+control+of+expressive+behaviour+during+verbal+deception.">Development of lying to conceal a transgression: Children's control of expressive behaviour during verbal deception.</a> Int J Behav Dev. 26 (5), 436-444 (2002).</li><li>Feldman, R. S., Jenkins, L., Popoola, O. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Detection+of+deception+in+adults+and+children+via+facial+expressions.">Detection of deception in adults and children via facial expressions.</a> Child Dev. 50 (2), 350-355 (1979).</li><li>Newton, P., Reddy, V., Bull, R. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Children's+everyday+deception+and+performance+on+false-belief+tasks.">Children's everyday deception and performance on false-belief tasks.</a> Brit J Dev Psychol. 18 (2), 297-317 (2000).</li><li>Sears, R., Rau, L., Alpert, R. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=.">.</a> Identification and Child Rearing. , (1965).</li><li>Talwar, V., Lee, K., Bala, N., Lindsay, R. C. 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A. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=The+development+of+the+intention+concept:+From+the+observable+world+to+the+unobservable+mind.">The development of the intention concept: From the observable world to the unobservable mind.</a> The New Unconscious. , 256-276 (2005).</li><li>Wang, L., Zhu, L., Wang, Z. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Parental+mind-mindedness+but+not+false+belief+understanding+predicts+Hong+Kong+children's+lie-telling+behavior+in+a+temptation+resistance+task.">Parental mind-mindedness but not false belief understanding predicts Hong Kong children's lie-telling behavior in a temptation resistance task.</a> J Exp Child Psychol. 162, 89-100 (2017).</li><li>Wellman, H. M., Cross, D., Watson, J. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term=Meta-analysis+of+theory-of-mind+development:+The+truth+about+false+belief.">Meta-analysis of theory-of-mind development: The truth about false belief.</a> Child Dev. 72 (3), 655-684 (2001).</li><li>Perner, J., Wimmer, H. <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Search&doptcmdl=Citation&defaultField=Title+Word&term="John+thinks+that+Mary+thinks+that..."+attribution+of+second-order+beliefs+by+5-to+10-year-old+children.">"John thinks that Mary thinks that..." attribution of second-order beliefs by 5-to 10-year-old children.</a> J Exp Child Psychol. 39 (3), 437-471 (1985).</li></ol>

The authors have nothing to disclose.

The protocol detailed in this article allows researchers to investigate children&#39;s spontaneous lie-telling behaviors in an experimental setting. It provides the children an opportunity not only to tell primary lies about their misdeeds, but also to tell more sophisticated strategic lies when confronted with evidence to cover up their misdeeds.
Some of the considerations in adapting and implementing this protocol relate to the procedure and item selection. Researchers could choose to skip s...

The overall goal of this modified temptation resistance protocol is to elicit children&#39;s naturalistic lie-telling behaviors in a deliberately designed laboratory setting. Children&#39;s lie-telling behavior as an important aspect of their social development has been the focus of research interest for decades. Lie-telling is defined as the intentional delivery of a false statement by one person or group to another person or group1. Lying to conceal one&#39;s own misdeeds is the most common and the earliest form of deception exhibited by children2, although it is viewed very negatively by both children and adults3. This type of lie serves the interests of the tellers by protecting them from the consequences of their transgressions4, but it violates trust and breaks rules of communication by contravening the assumption of information equality5. Although often viewed as a type of antisocial behavior, lying is an important social skill6, and its emergence reflects children&#39;s flexibility in dealing with complex social situations to ensure their own preservation. Therefore, enlisting children&#39;s spontaneous lie-telling behavior in a laboratory setting not only enables studies to investigate the development of children&#39;s lie-telling as a social behavior itself in depth, but also allows investigations into the cognitive and social correlates of lie-telling behavior during childhood.
Though children&#39;s lie-telling behaviors have attracted research attention for a long time7, significant progress regarding spontaneous lie-telling was only made possible in recent decades with the development of innovative experimental procedures that create situations prompting children to lie spontaneously1,4,8,9,10,11. Earlier studies asked children to &#34;lie&#34; about certain facts12, which does not reflect the covert nature of lie-telling. Lie-telling is a deceptive behavior where the listener is not supposed to know that the liar is trying to mislead him or her; and the listener should not be able to detect the lies for them to be successful. Thus asking the children to &#34;lie&#34; about facts creates a counterfeit situation which is deviant from children&#39;s natural lie-telling scenarios. Similar challenge was also present in earlier observational studies of lie-telling13, which only captured the &#34;lies&#34; that were debunked by the observer.
Pioneered by Sears, Rau, and Alpert14, and subsequently by Lewis et al.8, the original temptation resistance paradigm provides method for ecologically valid explorations of children&#39;s naturalistic lie-telling behaviors. In this paradigm, children are given the opportunity to commit a transgression, for example, being left alone in room with an attractive toy and instructed not to peek or play with it. Due to the task&#39;s high demand on executive function, it is difficult for young children to resist the temptation to peek or play with the toy. As a result, when being asked whether they have peeked or played with the toy, children who have transgressed have an opportunity to lie spontaneously. Thus, the paradigm creates a situation to elicit children&#39;s spontaneous lies instead of instructing them to lie. More importantly, it mimics the nature of the most common children lies, which usually aim to conceal wrongdoings14. The paradigm was further modified by Polak and Harris9, in which they compared a permissive condition where children were allowed to play with the toy with a prohibitive condition where children were instructed not to touch the toy. The contrast between children&#39;s reactions in the two conditions highlighted the fact that children had the actual intention to lie rather than forgetting what they did.
The most cited version of the modified temptation resistance paradigm starts with a guessing game1,10,15. Children are instructed to guess the identity of a toy by the sound it makes while facing away from the toy. After they get the first two trials correctly, they would be left alone in the room before they have a chance to guess the final one. They are instructed not to turn around to peek. Unlike the first two trials where the sound the toys make match the identities of the toys, the final toy makes a sound that is unrelated to the identity, therefore, it is unlikely to guess what the toy is simply through listening. Upon the experimenter&#39;s return, the child is asked what the toy is, and whether he/she has peeked. Follow-up questions would explore children&#39;s strategic lie-telling to cover up their transgression1,9,10,16. Strategic lie-telling is when the lie-teller takes what the lie recipient knows into consideration and makes a false statement consistent with previous lies in order to cover up misdeeds4. In this case, those who falsely deny transgression would be asked to explain how they know the identity of the toy without peeking to test whether they could offer plausible explanations consistent with their initial false denial to avoid being exposed. Studies employing this version of the paradigm suggested that preschool children were hardly able to tell plausible strategic lies consistent with their false denial of transgression1,9.
In addition to enlisting spontaneous and genuine lie that resembles those in the natural social exchange, the temptation resistance paradigm was further modified to confront children with the physical evidence of transgression to enlist cover-ups of the initial lies. A further modified version of the temptation resistance paradigm was developed by Evans, Xu, and Lee4 to examine children&#39;s strategic lie-telling behaviors in the presence of physical evidence. Different from semantic leakage control, the ability to maintain consistency between lies, strategic lie-telling requires a lie-teller to maintain consistency between a lie and the evidence that is available to the lie recipient, in this case, not only the verbal evidence, but also the physical evidence. In this version, children are asked to guess the identity of a toy hidden in an upside down cup for three times. The experimenter would give clues to ensure all children &#34;guess&#34; correctly in the first two trials. Subsequently, the children are instructed not to peek under the cup in the final trial while the experimenter briefly leaves the room. If they do transgress and peek, the content hidden in the cup would spill and leave physical evidence that is hard for children to clean up. Children are then asked to explain the physical evidence if they deny peeking. The advantage of this version over previous protocols is to reduce cognitive demand imposed by tracking changes in other people&#39;s beliefs as a result of the lies4. Instead, the presence of physical evidence of transgression functions as a reminder of previous behavior and contrasts directly with children&#39;s lies. That way children only need to fake their intentions to make a plausible explanation: the spill was an accident instead of the result of an intentional act. This is especially significant given that the mental state of intention is understood earlier in development than other people&#39;s beliefs17. Empirical studies using this version of the protocol demonstrate that young children are able to tell strategic lies consistent with the physical evidence of their transgression by 4- or 5-years of age4.
This paper introduces the modified version of the temptation resistance paradigm used in a recently published study18 in details with refined procedures and materials. The protocol is suitable for eliciting 2- to 8-year-old children&#39;s spontaneous lie-telling behavior. The recommended age range is based on the emergence of lie telling behavior in young children and their mental state understanding development during this period. Children as young as 2-year-old lie, and the level of sophistication of the lies is arguably associated with children&#39;s false belief understanding1,16. Children pass the first order false belief task between 3- and 5-years of age19, and pass the second order false belief task around 7- and 8-years of age20. The introduced protocol could be potentially used in areas of developmental psychology research related to children&#39;s social understanding and social behavior.

<table><tbody><tr><td>Camcorder</td><td>Sony</td><td>HDR-CX405</td><td>With tripod</td></tr></tbody></table>

the modified temptation resistance task: a paradigm to elicit children's strategic lie-telling

The protocol for the temptation resistance paradigm was designed to elicit 2- to 8-year-old children's strategic lie-telling behaviors. The reward of transgression was intended to be too tempting to resist, so that children's spontaneous lie-telling behavior in the presence of irreversible evidence due to the transgression could be observed. Conducted in a developmental psychology laboratory behind a one-way mirror and video recorded with a hidden camcorder, the protocol starts with a guessing game where the child is given three trials to guess the identities of hidden objects under an upside down cup. The experimenter gives hints in the first two trials to make sure the child "guess" them correctly. At the beginning of the final trial, the experimenter leaves the room briefly and asks the child not to peek under the cup. If the child could not resist the temptation and peeks, small particles previously filled in the cup would scatter on a grooved surface. Upon the experimenter's return, the child is asked if he/she has peeked. If he/she denies transgression contrary to the presence of the physical evidence, he/she is asked to explain why the particles are on the table. Three responses could be observed in the procedure, including the initial transgression, truth-telling or lie-telling behavior if the child peeked, and the strategic lie-telling behavior in the presence of the physical evidence.

The above method was implemented by Wang et al.18. Participants were 93 typically developing children from local kindergartens in Hong Kong (47 boys; age range 39.24 to 81.48 months, mean (M) age = 59.76 months, standard deviation (SD) = 9.84 months). The participants were divided into two groups using an age cutoff of 60 months. The younger group was composed of 46 children younger than 5 years (22 boys; M = 51.60 months, SD = 6.12 months), and the older ...

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The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling

The protocol for the temptation resistance paradigm was designed to elicit 2- to 8-year-old children&#39;s strategic lie-telling behaviors. The reward of transgression was intended to be too tempting to resist, so that children&#39;s spontaneous lie-telling behavior in the presence of irreversible evidence due to the transgression could be observed.

The protocol for the temptation resistance paradigm was designed to elicit 2- to 8-year-old children's strategic lie-telling behaviors. The reward of ...

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8.4K Views.  Shenzhen University. Het protocol voor de verleiding verzet paradigma is ontworpen voor 2 - tot 8-jarige kinderen strategische leugen vertellen gedrag uitlokken. De beloning van de transgressie was bedoeld als te verleidelijk te weerstaan, zodat het gedrag van kinderen spontane leugen vertellen in aanwezigheid van onomkeerbare bewijs als gevolg van de overtreding kan worden waargenomen.

Video: The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling

The Crossmodal Congruency Task as a Means to Obtain an Objective Behavioral Measure in the Rubber Hand Illusion Paradigm

The rubber hand illusion (RHI) is a popular experimental paradigm. Participants view touch on an artificial rubber hand while the participants' own hidden hand is touched. If the viewed and felt touches are given at the same time then this is sufficient to induce the compelling experience that the rubber hand is one's own hand. The RHI can be used to investigate exactly how the brain constructs distinct body representations for one's own body. Such representations are crucial for successful interactions with the external world. To obtain a subjective measure of the RHI, researchers typically ask participants to rate statements such as "I felt as if the rubber hand were my hand". Here we demonstrate how the crossmodal congruency task can be used to obtain an objective behavioral measure within this paradigm.
The variant of the crossmodal congruency task we employ involves the presentation of tactile targets and visual distractors. Targets and distractors are spatially congruent (i.e. same finger) on some trials and incongruent (i.e. different finger) on others. The difference in performance between incongruent and congruent trials - the crossmodal congruency effect (CCE) - indexes multisensory interactions. Importantly, the CCE is modulated both by viewing a hand as well as the synchrony of viewed and felt touch which are both crucial factors for the RHI.
The use of the crossmodal congruency task within the RHI paradigm has several advantages. It is a simple behavioral measure which can be repeated many times and which can be obtained during the illusion while participants view the artificial hand. Furthermore, this measure is not susceptible to observer and experimenter biases. The combination of the RHI paradigm with the crossmodal congruency task allows in particular for the investigation of multisensory processes which are critical for modulations of body representations as in the RHI.

We demonstrate how an objective measure can be employed in the widely employed rubber hand illusion paradigm. This measure is obtained by modifying the well-established crossmodal congruency task. This task allows the investigation of multisensory processes which are critical for modulations of body representations as in the rubber hand illusion.

The rubber hand illusion (RHI) is a popular experimental paradigm. Participants view touch on an artificial rubber hand while the participants' own hidden ...

The 5-Choice Serial Reaction Time Task: A Task of Attention and Impulse Control for Rodents

This protocol describes the 5-choice serial reaction time task, which is an operant based task used to study attention and impulse control in rodents. Test day challenges, modifications to the standard task, can be used to systematically tax the neural systems controlling either attention or impulse control. Importantly, these challenges have consistent effects on behavior across laboratories in intact animals and can reveal either enhancements or deficits in cognitive function that are not apparent when rats are only tested on the standard task. The variety of behavioral measures that are collected can be used to determine if other factors (i.e., sedation, motivation deficits, locomotor impairments) are contributing to changes in performance. The versatility of the 5CSRTT is further enhanced because it is amenable to combination with pharmacological, molecular, and genetic techniques.

This protocol describes the 5-choice serial reaction time task, which is an operant based task used to study attention and impulse control in rodents. Test day challenges, which are modifications of the standard task, increase flexibility of the task and can be combined with other manipulations to more fully characterize behavior.

This protocol describes the 5-choice serial reaction time task, which is an operant based task used to study attention and impulse control in rodents. ...

An Experimental Analysis of Children's Ability to Provide a False Report about a Crime

A considerable amount of research has evaluated children's lie-telling behaviors and skills1-2; however, limitations with the tasks used for eliciting false testimonies and interviewing children have restricted the generalizability of the findings. The primary aim of the current study is to provide an easy-to-administer and ecologically valid method for measuring the veracity and quality of school-aged children's (ages 6-11) testimonies when they are asked to provide different types of true and false reports. Moreover, the methodology enables researchers to examine the social and developmental factors that could influence the credibility of a child's testimony. In the current study, children will witness a theft, and are then asked to either falsely deny the transgression, falsely accuse a researcher of the theft, or tell the truth. Afterwards, children are to be interviewed by a second researcher using a thorough and ecologically valid interview protocol that requires children to provide closed-ended and free-recall responses about the events with the instigator (E1). Coders then evaluate the length and number of theft-related details the children give throughout the interview, as well as their ability to maintain their true and false reports. The representative results indicate that the truth and lie-telling conditions elicit the intended behaviors from the children. The open-ended interview questions encouraged children to provide free-recall information about their experiences with E1. Moreover, findings from the closed-ended questions suggest that children are significantly better at maintaining their lies with age, and when producing a false denial compared to a false accusation. Results from the current study can be used to develop a greater understanding of the characteristics of children's true and false testimonies about crime, which can potentially benefit law enforcement, legal staff and professionals who interview children.

The current methodology is designed to provide an ecologically relevant approach for measuring the veracity, length and quality of children's true and false testimonies. Implications of the current methodology for future research and professionals who interview children will also be discussed.

A considerable amount of research has evaluated children's lie-telling behaviors and skills1-2; however, limitations with the tasks used for eliciting ...

Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Self-distancing in Young Children

Self-distancing (i.e., creating mental distance between the self and a stimulus by adopting a less egocentric perspective) has been studied as a way to improve adolescents' and adults' emotion regulation. These studies instruct adolescents and adults to use visual imagery or language to create distance from the self before engaging in self-regulation tasks and when thinking about past and future events. For example, adults are asked to recall past, negative emotional experiences from either a first-person perspective (no distance) or a third-person perspective (self-distanced). These studies show that a self-distanced perspective allows adults to cope more adaptively when recalling negative feelings. However, the self-distancing paradigm used with adults was not developmentally appropriate for young children. This modified self-distancing paradigm involves instructing children to think about their thoughts, feelings, and actions from different perspectives that vary in their distance from the self while completing a self-regulation task. The paradigm involves randomly assigning children to use one of three perspectives: self-immersed, third-person, or exemplar. In the self-immersed condition, children are asked to think about themselves using the first-person perspective (e.g., "How am I feeling?") and no distance is created from the self. In the third-person condition, children are asked to create distance from the self by using the third-person perspective (e.g., "How is [child's name] feeling?"). In the exemplar condition, the greatest distance from the self is created by asking children to pretend to be a media character and to think about that character's thoughts and feelings (e.g., "How is Batman feeling?"). Studies using the self-distancing paradigm with 4-6-year-olds have found that as the amount of distance from the self increases (self-immersed &lt; third-person &lt; exemplar), children perform better on self-regulation tasks. These findings suggest that the strategies implemented in the self-distancing protocol may be useful to include in self-regulation interventions for young children.

An experimental paradigm was created to measure the effects of self-distancing in young children (4-6-year-olds). Self-distancing is a process through which individuals adopt a less egocentric perspective. This paradigm has been used to examine the effects of self-distancing on young children&#39;s self-regulation.

Self-distancing (i.e., creating mental distance between the self and a stimulus by adopting a less egocentric perspective) has been studied as a way to ...

Marginal Dishonesty: The Adding-to-10 Task

Source: Julian Wills &#38; Jay Van Bavel&#8212;New York University
Classical economic theory asserts that people are rational and self-interested. In addition to seeking wealth and status, people are motivated by other goals. As a result, financial motives can sometimes be dwarfed by other internal needs, such as maintaining a positive self-concept or affiliating with other group members. 
Ethical dilemmas, such as the temptation to cheat on taxes, can result when these motives are in conflict. On the one hand, people may be tempted to save money by underreporting their taxable income. On the other hand, no one wants to perceive themselves as a dishonest, free-rider. As a result, people are reluctant to fully exploit unethical opportunities because doing so can severely undermine their self-image as morally upstanding individuals. Instead, people cheat to a much smaller degree than they are capable of: just enough to gain additional resources, but not so much as to compromise their self-image. 
This tendency for marginal dishonesty, or the "fudge factor," is an important principle in social psychology and can be tested through a variety of techniques. Mazar, Amir, and Ariely originally described six separate experiments involving (dis)honesty and a theory of self-concept maintenance.1 The "Adding-to-10 Task" is one of the experimental techniques discussed and is prevalent in research that involves testing honesty. This video demonstrates how to produce and interpret the Adding-to-10 Task.

Source: Julian Wills &#38; Jay Van Bavel&#8212;New York University
Classical economic theory asserts that people are rational and self-interested. In ...

Education

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Psychology

Social Psychology

Executive Function and the Dimensional Change Card Sort Task

Source: Laboratories of Nicholaus Noles and Judith Danovitch&#8212;University of Louisville
Infants are born with amazing cognitive resources at their disposal, but they don&#8217;t know how to use them effectively. In order to harness the power of their brains, humans must develop high-level cognitive processes that manage basic brain functions. These processes make up what psychologists refer to as executive function. Executive function is a key factor in many self-regulatory behaviors, including forming plans to solve problems, negotiating between desires and actions, and directing attention. For example, a child must use several executive processes to stop playing with toys and start cleaning their room. These processes include inhibition (to stop what they&#8217;re doing), planning (to determine what actions need to be performed to clean the room), and attentional control (to stay on task until the cleaning is done). A breakdown of executive function during any of these steps would lead to the room remaining dirty.
Developing executive function is one of the key challenges faced by children as they mature. Some elements of executive function can only be mastered with practice, and brain areas linked to executive function, specifically the prefrontal cortex, develop slowly throughout development, continuing to grow and organize until an individual reaches their twenties. Early demonstrations of executive function have been linked to self-control and behavioral outcomes in children, as well as successes later in life. Relatedly, executive function is impaired in children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorders.
This experiment demonstrates how to assess executive function in children using the Dimensional Change Card Sort Task, developed by Dr. Philip Zelazo and colleagues.1

Dimensional Change Card Sort Task and Executive Function in Children

Source: Laboratories of Nicholaus Noles and Judith Danovitch&#8212;University of Louisville
Infants are born with amazing cognitive resources at their ...

Developmental Psychology

Piaget's Conservation Task and the Influence of Task Demands

Source: Laboratories of Judith Danovitch and Nicholaus Noles&#8212;University of Louisville
Jean Piaget was a pioneer in the field of developmental psychology, and his theory of cognitive development is one of the most well-known psychological theories. At the heart of Piaget&#8217;s theory is the idea that children&#8217;s ways of thinking change over the course of childhood. Piaget provided evidence for these changes by comparing how children of different ages responded to questions and problems that he designed.
Piaget believed that at age 5, children lack mental operators or logical rules, which underlie the ability to reason about relationships between sets of properties. This characteristic defined what he called the preoperational stage of cognitive development. One of Piaget&#8217;s classic measures of children&#8217;s ability to use mental operations is his conservation task. In this task, children are shown two identical objects or sets of objects. Children are first shown that the objects are the same on one key property (number, size, volume, etc.). Then, one of the objects is modified so it appears different than the other one (e.g., it is now longer, wider, or taller), but the key property remains the same. Following this transformation, children are asked to judge if the two objects or sets of objects are now the same or different with respect to the original key property.
Piaget reported that children in the preoperational stage (approximately ages 2-7) typically judged the objects to be different after the transformation, even though the key property had not changed. He attributed children&#8217;s incorrect responses to their excessive focus on the change, rather than on the fact that the key property remained the same. However, over the years, researchers have argued that Piaget&#8217;s conservation task is an invalid measure of children&#8217;s reasoning skills. These critics have suggested that children&#8217;s poor performance is due to task demands, such as assumptions about the experimenter&#8217;s goals and expectations when the question about the key property is repeated.
This video demonstrates how to conduct Piaget&#8217;s classic conservation task,1&#8211;2 and how a small modification in the task design can dramatically change children&#8217;s accuracy (based on the methods developed by McGarrigle and Donaldson3).

Piaget&#039;s Conservation Task and the Influence of Task Demands

Source: Laboratories of Judith Danovitch and Nicholaus Noles&#8212;University of Louisville
Jean Piaget was a pioneer in the field of developmental ...

Measuring Children's Trust in Testimony

Source: Laboratories of Judith Danovitch and Nicholaus Noles&#8212;University of Louisville
How does a person learn about the world around them? One way is through direct observation and exploration. However, not every piece of information can be observed firsthand. Instead, a person must often rely on other people as information sources. This is particularly true for children who have so many questions about the world around them, yet have limited means of accessing the answers. Thus, children must rely on other people to provide answers to their questions.
There is a popular viewpoint that children are gullible and that they believe everything they hear. However, recent research has shown this is not the case. Children as young as age 3 evaluate what other people say and show selective trust in other people&#8217;s testimony. Children pay attention to and use their knowledge about an individual&#8217;s prior behavior and characteristics to judge whether that individual is a trustworthy informational source. &#160;
This video demonstrates how to measure children&#8217;s trust in testimony based on methods developed by Birch, Vauthier, and Bloom1 and Koenig, Clement, and Harris.2&#160;

Measuring Children&#039;s Trust in Testimony

Source: Laboratories of Judith Danovitch and Nicholaus Noles&#8212;University of Louisville
How does a person learn about the world around them? One way ...

Are You Smart or Hardworking? How Praise Influences Children's Motivation

Source: Laboratories of Judith Danovitch and Nicholaus Noles&#8212;University of Louisville
Imagine teaching two children how to skate. It is a hard task for both of them, and they fall down frequently. After falling down for the first time, one child says that skating is too hard and wants to go home. The other child seems to enjoy the challenge and eagerly gets back up after falling down each time. Why do the children have such different attitudes about the same task? One reason may be that they have different mindsets or beliefs about the nature of their ability.
According to psychologist Carol Dweck, some people have a fixed mindset, and some people have a growth mindset. People with a fixed mindset believe that intelligence or abilities are fixed and cannot change. When these people face a challenge, like learning how to skate, they tend to believe that if a new skill does not come easily, then they are simply no good at it. They do not see their skills as capable of changing, and thus they decide that it&#8217;s useless to continue trying. People with a growth mindset have the opposite attitude. They believe that abilities can be developed through hard work, and they continue trying to improve even if they do not initially succeed.
How do these different mindsets develop? One factor that influences children&#8217;s persistence and motivation to succeed is the way their success is described by other people. Specifically, the kind of praise children receive from adults, such as parents and teachers, can have a powerful effect on their subsequent motivation to perform a challenging task.
This video demonstrates how to measure the effect of praise on children&#8217;s motivation based on the methods developed by Mueller and Dweck.1

Investigating How Praises Influence Children&#039;s Motivation

Source: Laboratories of Judith Danovitch and Nicholaus Noles&#8212;University of Louisville
Imagine teaching two children how to skate. It is a hard task ...

Memory Development: Demonstrating How Repeated Questioning Leads to False Memories

Source: Laboratories of Judith Danovitch and Nicholaus Noles&#8212;University of Louisville
A person is defined as a unique individual based on the people and events they encounter in their lives. Thus, creating, storing, and recalling memories are essential elements of the human experience. However, memory, as adults experience it, takes time to develop. Although young children can learn facts and remember details of their lives from moment-to-moment and day-to-day, they do not create autobiographical memories or detailed memories of events that happen in their lives until age 3 or older.
Even after age 3, children&#8217;s memories differ from those of adults in important ways. Children are less effective at evaluating their own memories than adults, which makes it difficult for them to determine, for example, whether or not their memories are accurate. False memories are a problem for both children and adults, as it is quite easy to create a false memory with a poorly-worded question or a story repeated over and over. However, young children are more susceptible to creating false memories than either older children or adults.
This video demonstrates children&#8217;s vulnerability to false memories using a method developed by Steven Ceci and his collaborators.1-2

Demonstrating How Repeated Questioning Leads to False Memories

Source: Laboratories of Judith Danovitch and Nicholaus Noles&#8212;University of Louisville
A person is defined as a unique individual based on the people ...

The Modified Temptation Resistance Task: A Paradigm to Elicit Children's Strategic Lie-telling

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