Children’s automatic evaluation of self‐generated actions is different from adults
Open accessAbstract
Performance monitoring (PM) is central to learning and decision making. It allows individuals to swiftly detect deviations between actions and intentions, such as response errors, and adapt behavior accordingly. Previous research showed that in adult participants, error monitoring is associated with two distinct and robust behavioral effects. First, a systematic slowing down of reaction time speed is typically observed following error commission, which is known as post‐error slowing (PES). Second, response errors have been reported to be automatically evaluated as negative events in adults. However, it remains unclear whether (1) children process response errors as adults do (PES), (2) they also evaluate them as negative events, and (3) their responses vary according to the pedagogy experienced. To address these questions, we adapted a simple decision‐making task previously validated in adults to measure PES as well as the affective processing of response errors. We recruited 8‐ to 12‐year‐old children enrolled in traditional (N = 56) or Montessori (N = 45) schools, and compared them to adults (N = 46) on the exact same task. Results showed that children processed correct actions as positive events, and that adults processed errors as negative events. By contrast, PES was similarly observed in all groups. Moreover, the former effect was observed in traditional schoolchildren, but not in Montessori schoolchildren. These findings suggest that unlike PES, which likely reflects an age‐invariant attention orienting toward response errors, their affective processing depends on both age and pedagogy.
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Montessori-schooled children exhibit a distinctive affective response to errors, processing their errors and successes comparatively neutral, whereas children who undergo traditional-schools' testing and grading show strong aversive responses to mistakes.
“Encouraged to freely explore and to make and monitor their own mistakes, Montessori-schooled children also exhibit a distinctive affective response to errors, processing their errors and successes comparatively neutral—whereas children who undergo traditional-schools’ testing and grading in terms of success or failure show strong aversive responses to mistakes [182].”
From Active inference goes to school: the importance of active learning in the age of large language models (2024) · cites this paper as [182]
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Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredUnderstanding play as epistemic foraging explains why children are attracted to novel stimuli and why young children, especially those in Montessori schools, do not have the same starkly negative affective responses to errors that adults do.
“Understanding play as epistemic foraging explains why children are so attracted to novel stimuli (objects expected to offer the most resolvable uncertainty) [181] and why young children, especially those in Montessori schools, don’t seem to have the same starkly negative affective responses to errors that adults do [182].”
From Active inference goes to school: the importance of active learning in the age of large language models (2024) · cites this paper as [182]
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An fMRI study of error monitoring in Montessori and traditionally-schooled children
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- Authors
- Denervaud, S., Hess, A., Sander, D., & Pourtois, G.
- Affiliations
- University of Geneva (CH)
- Ghent University (BE)
- Corresponding author
- Denervaud, Solange
- Pourtois, Gilles
- Venue
- Developmental Science
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2020-11-02
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- e13045-e13045
- ISSN
- 1363-755X (ISSN-L)
- 1467-7687
- OpenAlex
- W3092001482
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 57
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 0.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Developmental Science (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- IRIS (submittedVersion)
- SERVAL (Université de Lausanne) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (n°3G024716)
- National Center of Competence in Research Affective Sciences - Emotions in Individual Behaviour and Social Processes (n°51NF40‐104897)
- National Science Foundation (51NF40‐104897, 3G024716)
- Université de Genève
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Developmental and Educational Neuropsychology
- Keywords
- performance monitoring, error monitoring, post-error slowing, response errors, children, adults, Montessori method, traditional schooling, pedagogy, age differences, attentional orienting
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Attention, Child, Cognition, Humans, Psychomotor Performance, Reaction Time
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