This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Parents often learn the hard way that to make it anywhere on time, they should calculate how much time they think they need to get ready—and double it. It's hard enough for adults with deep-rooted mental checklists to make it out the door.
For young children, such lists give way to treasure maps. Everything from clothing choices to snacks and toys for the car requires diplomatic negotiations that can't be rushed without risking a meltdown. The clock is ticking, but your child is blissfully unaware and suddenly more interested in staying home.
Whereas adults rely on streamlined internal mind maps to carry out their daily routines, young children's brains appear to be wired for distraction. According to a review paper published recently in Trends in Cognitive Sciences, what might look and feel like pure chaos—or worse, obstinance—is an important window into how growing minds think and learn through exploration. In the paper, lead author Vladimir Sloutsky, a professor of psychology at The Ohio State University, revisits research his lab previously reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General and notes that "children tend to explore broadly, and, despite its costs, exploration confers important benefits, especially early in development, when they know little." In other words, Sloutsky said, "they are humans learning to be human." When choosing between trying something new (exploration) or repeating actions that have already proven successful (exploitation), learners of all ages encounter what researchers call the "exploration-exploitation dilemma." Trying new things might prove to be a waste of time and energy, but repeating familiar actions could prevent someone from acquiring new skills or knowledge.
Adults are typically more exploitative, preferring to repeat actions that have previously led to successful, rewarding outcomes, while children are less selective about where they direct their attention. Sloutsky and his co-authors wanted to find out more about what is driving this exploratory behavior, particularly in children ages 3 to 8. For decades, the prevailing theory was that children explore simply because they are naturally curious—or, possibly, because their decision-making is more random.
Sloutsky's work offers a different explanation: Early exploration is driven by the immaturity of a child's working memory system. A mature working memory helps adults hold onto a plan and selectively filter out distractions, while an immature working memory, by contrast, is set to "distributed attention," meaning young children are prone to spreading their attention broadly. To test this, Sloutsky's team overloaded adults' working memory by asking them to complete a decision-making game while also reporting whenever two consecutive odd numbers appeared in a continuous stream of numbers.
When their working memory was taxed, adults in the study abandoned their strategic choices and explored more broadly, exhibiting attentional patterns nearly identical to those of 5-year-olds. While children's lack of focus might make leaving the house a test of patience, it serves a crucial evolutionary purpose, ensuring that young learners absorb as much information as possible about the world. "Because they don't have a fully developed working memory system, children will explore and resample, especially in less familiar situations.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
