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Korean Preschoolers’ Advanced Inhibitory Control and Its Relation to Other Executive Skills and Mental State Understanding
Author(s) -
Oh Seungmi,
Lewis Charlie
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01112.x
Subject(s) - psychology , inhibitory control , developmental psychology , relation (database) , control (management) , cognition , cognitive development , self control , attentional control , executive functions , child development , cognitive psychology , neuroscience , management , database , computer science , economics
This study assessed executive function and mental state understanding in Korean preschoolers. In Experiment 1, forty 3.5‐ and 4‐year‐old Koreans showed ceiling performance on inhibition and switching measures, although their performance on working memory and false belief was comparable to that of Western children. Experiment 2 revealed a similar advantage in a sample of seventy‐six 3‐ and 4‐year‐old Koreans compared with sixty‐four age‐matched British children. Korean children younger than 3.5 years of age showed ceiling effects on some inhibition measures despite more stringent protocols and the link between executive function and mental state understanding was not as strong as in the British sample. The results raise key questions about the nature and development of the executive system and its relation to social understanding.