Children perform cognitive tasks faster on their own in studies, says new research

Groundbreaking new research led by the University of St Andrews has shown that children perform cognitive tasks faster on their own in studies, rather than in the presence of a stranger.

Cognitive control development across childhood is critical for later academic achievement and further life outcomes. Despite recent advancements in its understanding, no study has ever addressed whether one of the most frequent contextual features 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 that the instructions are understood and answer any questions. Yet, it was unknown whether this simple presence could influence how children focus on a task.

However, in a paper published this week in Nature Scientific Reports, research from the University of St Andrew’s School of Psychology and Neuroscience found that children were slower to respond on the cognitive task where an adult was present than when an adult was absent, particularly when the task requires children to be particularly attentive.

This effect was also observed more in younger children, for whom the task was most challenging.

Researchers gave children aged 4-5 and 8-9 years a well-established cognitive task with different cognitive demands and compared the performance of children who were completing the task in the presence of an unfamiliar adult to other children who were completing the task alone without the adult next to them.

This research, in collaboration with Tsinghua University, Clermont-Auvergne University and University of Fribourg, aligns with recent efforts in the field of developmental research to better understand how the experimental context affects children’s cognitive performance and development. But it is unique in showing that a social aspect as simple as the presence of an adult is enough to influence how children exert their attention.

Future research is needed to understand what causes this effect and how it differs or not depending on various factors such as children’s personality, preferences and habits. In the long run, this research has strong potential to better capture which environments are favourable to the children for their learning as well as which research context are best to isolate psychological phenomena.

Lead researcher Dr Aurélien Frick, from the School of Psychology and Neuroscience, said: “The research question of this study was trivial: does it matter whether or not I’m in the room with the children during psychological research? The 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.”