Children perform cognitive tasks faster alone

New research has shown that children perform cognitive tasks quicker on their own, rather than in the presence of an adult they have not met before.

Led by the School of Psychology and Neuroscience from the University of St Andrews and in collaboration with Tsinghua University, Clermont-Auvergne University and University of Fribourg, a study found that children were slower to respond on the a cognitive tasks where an adult was present than when an adult was absent, especially when the task required children to pay their full attention.

Despite recent advancements in our understanding of cognitive control development, no study has ever addressed where on of the most frequent contextual element of a child’s life — the presence of another person — impacts cognitive learning and development. In developmental research an adult is almost essentially present in the room with the child to make sure instructions were understood, so this research shows the influence of this presence has on a child.

Researchers gave children aged four to five and eight to nine years a cognitive task with different demands and compared the performance of those completing the task in the presence of a stranger with those completing the task alone.

Future research is needed to understand what causes this effect and how it differs depending on other factors like the child’s personality, their preferences, and their habits. In the long run, this research has the potential to better capture which environments are favourable to the children for their learning.

Lead researcher Dr Aurélien Frick said: “The research question of this study was trivial: does it matter whether or now I’m in the room with the child during psychological research? This simple and short answer coming from this study is yes. However, what underlies this and what is the role of individual differences on this effect remains an open, but exciting, question for future studies.”