TY - JOUR

T1 - Development of coordination in time estimation

AU - Kiefer, Adam W.

AU - Wallot, Sebastian

AU - Gresham, Lori J.

AU - Kloos, Heidi

AU - Riley, Michael A.

AU - Shockley, Kevin

AU - Van Orden, Guy

PY - 2014/2/1

Y1 - 2014/2/1

N2 - How to best characterize cognitive development? The claim put forward in this article is that development is the improvement of a kind of coordination among a variety of factors. To determine the development of coordination in a cognitive task, children between 4 and 12 years of age and adults participated in a time estimation task: They had to press a button every time they thought a short time interval had passed. The resulting data series of estimated time intervals was then subjected to a set of fractal analyses to quantify coordination in terms of its degree of "rigidity" (very highly integrated) vs. "looseness" (poorly integrated). Results show a developmental trajectory toward pink-noise patterns, suggesting that cognitive development progresses from a very loose, poorly integrated coordination of factors toward a pattern that expresses more integration, perhaps due to an optimization of constraints, that allows for a more stable coordination.

AB - How to best characterize cognitive development? The claim put forward in this article is that development is the improvement of a kind of coordination among a variety of factors. To determine the development of coordination in a cognitive task, children between 4 and 12 years of age and adults participated in a time estimation task: They had to press a button every time they thought a short time interval had passed. The resulting data series of estimated time intervals was then subjected to a set of fractal analyses to quantify coordination in terms of its degree of "rigidity" (very highly integrated) vs. "looseness" (poorly integrated). Results show a developmental trajectory toward pink-noise patterns, suggesting that cognitive development progresses from a very loose, poorly integrated coordination of factors toward a pattern that expresses more integration, perhaps due to an optimization of constraints, that allows for a more stable coordination.

KW - Psychology

KW - Fractals

KW - Motor and cognitive development

KW - Time estimation

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84893682536&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1037/a0033629

DO - 10.1037/a0033629

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 23855257

AN - SCOPUS:84893682536

VL - 50

SP - 393

EP - 401

JO - Developmental Psychology

JF - Developmental Psychology

SN - 0012-1649

IS - 2

ER -