Psychological Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01278-z

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Children struggle beyond preschool‑age in a continuous version of the ambiguous fgures task

Eva Rafetseder1 · Sarah Schuster2 · Stefan Hawelka2 · Martin Doherty3 · Britt Anderson4 · James Danckert5 · Elisabeth Stöttinger2

Received: 12 April 2019 / Accepted: 10 December 2019 © The Author(s) 2019

Abstract Children until the age of fve are only able to reverse an ambiguous fgure when they are informed about the second inter- pretation. In two experiments, we examined whether children’s difculties would extend to a continuous version of the ambiguous fgures task. Children (Experiment 1: 66 3- to 5-year olds; Experiment 2: 54 4- to 9-year olds) and adult controls saw line drawings of animals gradually morph—through well-known ambiguous fgures—into other animals. Results show a relatively late developing ability to recognize the target animal, with difculties extending beyond preschool-age. This delay can neither be explained with improvements in theory of mind, inhibitory control, nor individual diferences in eye movements. Even the best achieving children only started to approach adult level performance at the age of 9, suggesting a fundamentally diferent processing style in children and adults.

Introduction recurring neural fatigue (review in Long & Toppino, 1981, 2004), gaze orientation (Ruggieri & Fernandez, 1994), Reversible or ambiguous fgures like the Rubin’s face/vase mental imagery (Doherty & Wimmer, 2005) and context picture or the Necker cube have been used to study how efects (Intaitė et al., 2013). A critical factor that determines people spontaneously alternate between two mutually exclu- whether participants are able to reverse an ambiguous fgure sive interpretations of objectively stable pictures. The abil- is the amount of information given about the two potential ity to reverse ambiguous fgures depends on a combination interpretations (Mitrof, Sobel, & Gopnik, 2006). (1) When of top–down and bottom–up processes (Intaitė, Noreika, no information is given, one needs to be aware of the ambi- Šoliūnas, & Falter, 2013; Long & Toppino, 2004), including guity (i.e., uninformed reversal). Adults rarely ever reverse spontaneously (Rock & Mitchener, 1992). (2) When aware of the ambiguity, one needs to explore or generate potential Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https​://doi.org/10.1007/s0042​6-019-01278​-z) contains alternative interpretations (i.e., ambiguity-informed rever- supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. sal). Under these conditions, about 50% of adults are able to recognize the second interpretation (Girgus, Rock, & Egatz, * Elisabeth Stöttinger 1977). (3) When both ambiguity and content are known, the [email protected] perceiver must be able to conceive of a fgure having more 1 Division of Psychology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, than one interpretation to fexibly alternate between those University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, UK two (i.e., content informed reversal), a requirement that was 2 Department of Psychology, Centre for Cognitive only initially evident in children (Doherty & Wimmer, 2005; Neuroscience, University of Salzburg, Hellbrunnerstrasse 34, Gopnik & Rosati, 2001). 5020 Salzburg, Austria Children up to 5 years almost never show uninformed 3 School of Psychology, University of East Anglia, reversals (Girgus et al., 1977; Rock, Gopnik, & Hall, 1994; Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK Rock & Mitchener, 1992)—and even struggle with content 4 Department of Psychology and Centre for Theoretical informed reversals (Gopnik & Rosati, 2001; Rock, Hall, & Neuroscience, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Davis, 1994; Wimmer & Doherty, 2011). In fact, even the ON N2L 3G1, Canada majority of 5- to 9-year olds fail to reverse ambiguous fg- 5 Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, ures spontaneously (Mitrof et al., 2006). Although reversal Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada

Vol.:(0123456789)1 3 Psychological Research rates increase throughout childhood (Holt & Matson, 1976), about the content of the second interpretation, only about they still do not reach adult level by age 10 (Ehlers, Strüber, its potential for another interpretation. Participants have to & Basar-Eroglu, 2016). generate alternative perspectives (i.e., it could transform This developmental phenomenon is compelling and into a cat, a dog, a fsh, etc.), and compare or rank perspec- requires further investigation for two reasons. A late onset tives (i.e., at some point it cannot be a fsh anymore, given may either refect an ontogenetically emerging basic, low- the ears) to report the target animal. Thus, possible alterna- level perceptual process or a cognitively demanding, late- tives cannot be chosen randomly but need to be consistent manifesting process. Previous research has produced mixed with the actual stimulus. Otherwise, the amount of potential fndings. Gopnik and Rosati (2001) showed that reversals alternative explanations would be overwhelming, ultimately were closely linked with tasks that elicited non-perceptual, hampering efcient updating. multiple representations (e.g., false belief task), suggest- The picture morphing task, therefore, provides several ing that the ability to reverse depends upon late-developing advantages over the standard ambiguous fgure task: (1) cognitive abilities. Yet, more recent evidence (Doherty & the continuous measure makes it possible to test children Wimmer, 2005; Wimmer & Doherty, 2011) does not fnd a younger than 5 years, who would have otherwise rarely direct relation between false belief performance and switch- reversed (Gopnik & Rosati, 2001). (2) It introduces variance ing interpretations. The current set of studies was designed into a typically dichotomous measure. (3) Most importantly, to further investigate this question. it allows to capture gradual developmental improvements Another reason to investigate this phenomenon devel- and to quantify any specifc defcits in this form of reversal. opmentally is that children, even when informed about the In Experiment 1, we assessed children’s developmental ambiguity, are unlikely to reverse. Ambiguity-informed progression on the picture morphing task and compared it reversals explicitly require children to explore or generate to performance of adult participants exposed to the same potential alternative interpretations. Children, however, stimulus material. We were particularly interested in whether fail to switch between interpretations—even when they younger children would need more morphing stages until have acknowledged their existence beforehand (Doherty & they named the emerging animal compared to older children Wimmer, 2005). While children may simply be reluctant and adults. This task has never been administered in children to switch interpretations in view of physically unchanged before. It is therefore difcult to make any defnitive predic- objects, this seems unlikely to explain their difculties, tions about how they will perform. In a similar vein, we can given that children were encouraged to report any changes only speculate which other factors may infuence recogni- they saw (Gopnik & Rosati, 2001). Alternatively, once chil- tion of the second object. We tested whether children who dren understand that two interpretations are possible, they master the standard false belief task (Wimmer & Perner, may struggle to (voluntarily) inhibit one interpretation over 1983) will identify the second object in the picture morphing the other. An increased ability to reverse would then be an task sooner. In addition, we tested whether executive func- indicator of bottom–up development through successful tioning and selective attention would infuence children’s inhibition (Bialystok & Shapero, 2005; Wimmer & Doherty, performance in the picture morphing task—both of which 2011). were previously hypothesized to afect performance on the Also, earlier studies reported an association between con- ambiguous fgures task. Increased inhibitory control (i.e., tent informed reversal and theory of mind (Gopnik & Rosati, the ability to withhold the previous representation of the 2001; Mitrof et al., 2006) which was not confrmed in later stimulus and exchange it for the conficting option) could studies (Doherty & Wimmer, 2005; Wimmer & Doherty, help children to ascribe a diferent meaning to the picture 2011). Studies that found a positive association argued that (Bialystok & Shapero, 2005). Wimmer and Doherty (2011) considering someone else’s belief and understanding ambi- found that performance on the day/night Stroop task (Ger- guity both require children to have an abstract understand- stadt, Hong, & Diamond, 1994), a measure of inhibitory ing of perspective (for a discussion see Perner, Stummer, control, predicted ambiguous fgure switching. We, there- Sprung, & Doherty, 2002). fore, used the same task in our study. In the current study, we used a continuous version of For exploratory purposes, we also recorded children’s eye the ambiguous fgures task. In this task, an animal (e.g., a movements to test whether picture morphing efects relate to duck) morphs over 15 iterations into another animal (e.g., a individual diferences in visual inspection of the pictures. In rabbit) with picture #8 depicting a well-known ambiguous adult participants, impoverished control of selective atten- fgure (e.g., duck–rabbit, Wittgenstein, 1953). This picture tion led to lower sampling of informative parts of the stim- morphing task (Stöttinger et al., 2014; see also Burnett & ulus (Tsal & Kolbet, 1985) and could explain variance in Jellema, 2013) measures how many morphs participants the picture morphing task (Ruggieri & Fernandez, 1994). need before they switch to the new interpretation (i.e., rab- Also, fxations recorded prior to object recognition predicted bit). Unlike in previous studies, children were not informed which interpretation of an ambiguous image was reported

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(Kietzmann, Geuter, & König, 2011). Wimmer and Doherty Adult controls needed on average 11 ± 6 min to complete (2007), however, failed to fnd any diference in eye move- the task. ment patterns between children who reversed an ambiguous fgure and children who failed to do so. Procedure and materials Results of Experiment 1 revealed that children in all age groups required more morphs to switch interpretations than Picture morphing task adult controls, with no signifcant improvements within the child group. In Experiment 2, we tested older children (up Four sets of line drawings were used (Fig. 1a), two (duck/ to 9 years) to examine at which age the ability to report the rabbit and swan/cat) were taken from Stöttinger et al. (2014), second object in the picture morphing task improves. and two (horse/seal and snail/whale) were created by the last author in Paint©. Each set was based on a well-known ambiguous fgure (Bernstein & Cooper, 1997; Fisher, 1968; Experiment 1 Jastrow, 1900; Wittgenstein, 1953). Over 15 iterations, an unambiguous representation of an animal (e.g., a duck) mor- Participants phed into an unambiguous representation of a diferent ani- mal (e.g., rabbit). The eighth picture of each set represented Children the most ambiguous fgure. At the fourth and fourteenth positions, a ‘catch’ object was included to evaluate whether Participants were 66 3- to 5-year olds (Mage = 54.95 months; participants simply perseverated on a single response. Pic- SD = 10.46, age range 37–71, 33 girls) from fve nurseries tures (for children: 12 × 12 cm; for adults: 300 × 300 pixels) in Austria and Germany. Parents gave written consent and were presented on a computer monitor one at a time (black the children gave their assent to participation. Seventeen on white background). Set order followed a Latin Square additional children failed to complete at least two sets of Design. Morphing direction (e.g., duck to rabbit vs. rabbit the picture morphing task (see “Procedure and materials”) to duck) was fully counterbalanced. and were excluded. Participants were told that they would see the picture of an animal gradually changing into another animal. They Adults were asked to verbally state what they saw (children) or to type in the word (adults) for each picture. Answers were Seventy-six participants (Mage = 36.82 years, SD = 9.07; rated as frst or second object when they ft the general con- age range 22–61 years; 30 females) were recruited through cept (e.g., swan, duck, bird, stork, etc. were rated as “swan”). Mechanical Turk. All participants gave informed written Answers not matching the concept (e.g., “snake”), and omis- consent prior to participation by clicking on the “I agree” sions, were categorized as “other”. The categorization was button. Five additional participants were excluded because done independently by two raters with an interrater agree- they quit the task prematurely within the frst set (n = 2) or ment of 98.1%. Cases of disagreement were discussed and failed to complete at least two sets of the picture morphing resolved to mutual satisfaction. The dependent variable was task (n = 3). Participants received $2 for their participation. the picture position at which participants reported the second Ethical approval was granted by the Ethics Panel of the Uni- object. versity of Salzburg, following the principles expressed in the Sets were coded as completed, following three criteria: Declaration of Helsinki. (1) both catch trials were identifed correctly; (2) the second interpretation was identifed correctly at least once; and (3) Design no “other” reports were made. In children, eye movements were recorded throughout Each participant was exposed to four sets of the picture mor- the picture morphing task to test whether second object phing task (Fig. 1a). Children additionally received (a) a interpretations were related to their visual inspection of the brief check that they knew the names of the animals in the drawings. Eye movements were recorded monocularly from task prior to the morphing task, (b) an unexpected transfer the right eye with an EyeLink 1000 (SR-Research, Ontario, false belief task (Perner, Mauer, & Hildenbrand, 2011) and Canada) eye tracker at a sampling rate of 500 Hz. We used (c) a day/night Stroop task (Gerstadt et al., 1994). Half of the the “remote” setup that did not require head stabilization children received the picture morphing task prior to the false but tracked a target sticker on the children’s forehead. The belief task and the day/night Stroop task; half had the reverse viewing distance was approximately 50 cm. Stimuli were order. The order of the false belief task and the Stroop task presented on a 17-in. CRT-monitor with a resolution of was fully counterbalanced. Testing of children lasted up to 1024 × 768 pixel and a frame rate of 60 Hz. A three-point 30 min and took place in a quiet room at children’s nurseries. calibration routine preceded the experiment. Each picture

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Fig. 1 a Stimuli in the picture morphing task. b Overall percentages frst object, the gray solid line displays the responses identifying the of reports for children in Experiment 1 (left), children in Experi- second object. The dashed line represents answers other than the frst ment 2 (center) and adult participants (right)—averaged over all or second object. c Average percentage of participants reporting the picture sets. The x-axis represents the gradual morph from the frst second object (y-axis) at each of the ffteen morphing stages (x-axis) object (100% the frst object) to the second object (0% frst object). for valid picture sets for Experiment 1 (left) and Experiment 2 (right) The black solid line represents the responses (in %) identifying the set was preceded by a fxation control for which the children system was re-calibrated. Thereafter, the picture morphing had to fxate a centrally presented cross for a minimum dura- task was presented one picture at a time. Each picture was tion of 150 ms. If the fxation control procedure failed, the presented until the child gave a response. Eye-tracking data

1 3 Psychological Research were analyzed with R (R Core Team, 2019). We considered The most excluded picture set was the cat/swan set, but mean number of fxations, mean fxation duration (exclud- exclusion rates were comparable between children and adults ing fxations of less than 80 ms) and mean summed saccade for each picture set (cat/swan: 32% children, 26% adults; length per picture in each sequence as dependent measures. duck/rabbit: 8% children, 7% adults; horse/seal: 14% chil- dren, 9% adults; snail/whale: 18% children, 17% adults). Unexpected transfer false belief task On average, children completed 3.29 ± 0.72 sets (2 sets: n = 10; 3 sets: n = 27; 4 sets: n = 29), adults 3.41 ± 0.75 sets We used a PowerPoint© version of the unexpected transfer (2 sets: n = 12; 3 sets: n = 21; 4 sets: n = 43), with both false belief task (Perner et al., 2011). A female doll, Lisa, participant groups being worse at reversing the horse/seal puts a teddy into a red box and leaves. A male doll, Tom, picture set compared to the other three sets.1 As participants enters, transfers the teddy into a yellow box and leaves. Chil- progressed from set 1 through to set 4, the average number at dren were asked four Comprehension Questions: (1) where which participants identifed the second object stayed rela- did Lisa place the teddy? (2) Where is the teddy now? (3) tively constant,2 meaning that participants did not improve Who placed it there? and (4) did Lisa see that? If children throughout the task (Figure 1 in Supplemental Materials). gave one or more incorrect answers, the entire scenario was Finally, the average picture number at which a switch was repeated until all control questions were answered correctly reported across all valid sets was submitted to an analysis (n = 18). Finally, Lisa returned and children were asked of variance (ANOVA) for participant group (children vs. where she will look frst for her teddy (prediction question). adults). This analysis revealed a highly signifcant main Regardless of whether children made a correct prediction efect [F(1, 140) = 137.23, p < 0.001, η2= 0.50]. Adults iden- or not, Lisa was then shown to search in the red box and tifed the second object on average at picture #8 (M = 8.38, children were asked to explain her behavior (explanation SD = 1.89), and therefore signifcantly earlier than children, question). Following Wimmer and Mayringer (1998), expla- who identified the second object at around picture #12 nations were considered correct when they either contained (M = 11.99, SD = 1.76) (Fig. 1a, c, left panel). appropriate mental state words (e.g., “she thought the teddy was in there”; “she did not see it being moved”) or relevant Correlation between performance in the picture story facts (e.g., “she had put it in the red box”; “somebody morphing task and other cognitive abilities has taken the teddy away”). All other answers were catego- rized as incorrect. In the false belief test, 45 (68%) children correctly predicted that Lisa would search in the empty location (prediction Day/night Stroop task question). Regardless of whether children made a correct prediction or not, they were asked to explain her behavior We used one set of cards (13.5 × 10 cm) following the day/ (explanation question). Twenty-eight children (42%) cor- night Stroop task by Gerstadt et al., (1994). Children were rectly answered the explanation question, the majority of instructed to say “day” when shown a black card with a white whom (n = 23) referred to relevant story facts. In the day/ moon and stars and to say “night” when shown a white card with a yellow sun. Subsequently, children were presented with a total of 16 cards in the order night (n), day (d), d, n, d, 1 n, n, d, d, n, d, n, n, d, n, d. If children responded incorrectly A mixed-efect ANOVA for the average picture number at which a switch was reported was calculated with the picture set (duck–rab- on one of the frst two trials, they were reminded of the rules bit, cat–swan, horse–seal, snail–whale) as a within-subjects fac- (two times at maximum) and the test was restarted. There- tor and participant group (children vs. adults) as a between-subjects after, children received no direct feedback. The dependent factor. This analysis revealed a signifcant main efect for partici- F p η2 measure was the number of trials answered correctly. pant group [ (1, 70) = 83.68, < 0.001; = 0.54], and picture set [F(3, 210) = 6.47, p < 0.001; η2 = 0.09], but no signifcant interaction between participant group × picture set [F(3, 210) = 0.49, p > 0.65, µ2 = 0.007]. Overall, participants identifed the second object later in Results the horse/seal picture set compared to all other sets (pairwise—Bon- ferroni corrected—t test; smallest p value = 0.012). Note, this analysis Picture morphing task comprises a smaller sample, because only 29 children and 43 adults completed all four sets. 2 The same mixed-efect ANOVA was calculated for set order (set Only complete picture sets were included in the analysis (see 1–set 4) as the within-subjects factor. This analysis revealed a sig- Procedure and Materials section for more details). Three nifcant main efect for participant group only [F(1, 70) = 83.68, p η2 percent of all responses in adults and 6% of all responses in < 0.001; = 0.54] with neither a signifcant efect for set order [F(3, 210) = 1.28, p > 0.25; η2 = 0.02], nor a signifcant interaction children comprised “other” responses, equally distributed between set order × participant group [F(3, 210) = 1.16, p > 0.30; over the course of the task (Fig. 1b). η2 = 0.02].

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Table 1 Pairwise correlations [partial correlations controlling for age] between picture morphing task, false belief task (separate for prediction and explanation question), day/night Stroop task, and age

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1. Picture morphing – [0.069] [− 0.094] [0.009] 2. Prediction 0.001 – [0.081] [− 0.044] 3. Explanation − 0.146 0.257* – [0.018] 4. Day/night Stroop − 0.051 0.143 0.200 – 5. Age (months) − 0.141 0.430*** 0.447*** 0.416**

+ p <0.1, *p <0.05, **p <0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001 (two-tailed) night Stroop inhibitory control task, out of 16 possible responses, children gave 10.8 (SD = 5.01) correct answers on average. To test whether there is a connection between performance in the false belief task (correct prediction and explanation), day/night Stroop task and picture morphing task (average number of frst objects reports for valid sets), we calculated correlations as well as partial correlations con- trolling for age (Table 1). Age correlated with all measures except performance in the picture morphing task. Performance in the prediction and explanation question also correlated moderately, but this fell short of signifcance when age was controlled for (upper half of Table 1). No other correlations were signifcant.

Eye‑tracking data

A median split was used to divide children into “early” (i.e., ≤ 11 pictures; M = 9.72 ± 1.50) and “late” switchers (i.e., > 11 pictures; M = 12.33 ± 0.66 pictures) based on the average number of frst object reports they made before reporting the second object in the picture morphing task. Figure 2 shows mean number of fxations, mean fxation duration, and mean summed saccade length for eight pic- tures prior to the switch (T-8 to T-1), at the switch (T0), and one picture after the switch (T1). Fig. 2 Mean number of fxations, mean fxation duration (in ms), and Data were submitted to three separate mixed factorial summed saccade length (in mm) for eight pictures prior to the switch 3 (T-8 to T-1), at the switch (T0), and one picture after the switch (T1), repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVA) for (1) separate for “early” (≤ 11 pictures) and “late” switchers (> 11 pic- mean number of fxations, (2) mean fxation duration, and tures) in the picture morphing task. Error bars represent the standard (3) mean summed saccade length as dependent variables error of the mean (SEM) and time point of switch (i.e., the eight pictures prior to the switch, the picture at the switch as well as one picture after the switch) as the within-subjects factor and perfor- and performance group: the average number of fxations mance group (early vs. late) as the between-subjects factor. [F(9, 504) = 6.36, p < 0.001, η2= 0.10], the average fxation Analyses revealed signifcant main efects for time of switch duration [F(9, 504) = 6.15, p < 0.001, η2= 0.10], as well as the saccade length [F(9, 504) = 3.64, p < 0.001, η2= 0.06], all peaked at the moment of the switch (pairwise—Bon- 3 Note that data were not available for fourteen children due to ferroni corrected—t test for post hoc analyses; highest p problems during the calibration procedure. Behavioral data for the M value = 0.027; Fig. 2). Early switchers showed signifcantly remaining 52 children ( age = 55.92 months) closely resembles F p results for the entire group (i.e., Median = 11; ­Mean = 9.86 larger number of fixations [ (1, 56) = 10.05, < 0.01, high performers η2 F ± 1.20; ­Meanlow performers = 12.22 ± 0.65). = 0.15], longer mean fxation durations [ (1, 56) = 7.31,

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Fig. 3 Heat maps of the cumulative number of fxations displayed web version of this article.). The dotted squares represent where par- separately for “early” (≤ 11 pictures, top) and “late” switchers (> 11 ticipants on average reported a shift in perception. The bottom row pictures, center) with warmer colors indicating more attention. (For highlights the area of change from one picture to the next interpretation of the references to color, the reader is referred to the p < 0.01, η2= 0.12], and longer saccades [F(1, 56) = 4.24, (e.g., picture #11, #12, and #13) than later switching chil- p < 0.05, η2= 0.07]. None of the interactions between time dren—whose attention was again mostly drawn towards the × performance group reached signifcance (all ps > 0.15), eye of the fgure. indicating that the two groups did not difer in their inspec- tion patterns over time. For exploratory analysis, we created heat maps for the Discussion rabbit/duck picture-set. This set was selected because it had the highest number of valid data sets and the highest number Children overall reported the second object much later of eye tracking data sets available (n = 29). Also, there was (i.e., at picture #12) than adults (i.e., at picture #8) and considerable variance between participants which allowed only when the picture displayed predominantly the second us to divide the sample into early (n = 13) and late switching object (Fig. 1a). Also, there was no clear developmental groups (n = 16) based on where children reported the second improvement despite older children outperforming younger object in this particular set. Children in the early switch- children on theory of mind and inhibitory control (Table 1). ing group reported seeing the duck between picture #7 and While these factors have afected the probability of content #8 (M = 7.54, SD = 1.76). This was on average one to two informed reversal in previous studies (Bialystok & Shapero, pictures later compared to adults’ performance in the same 2005; Doherty & Wimmer, 2005; Gopnik & Rosati, 2001; picture-set [M = 5.82, SD = 1.52; t(50) = 3.39, p < 0.01]. The Mitrof et al., 2006; but see Ropar Mitchell, & Ackroyd, late switching group reported seeing the duck on average 2003), none of these measures afected performance on the between picture #12 and #13 (M = 12.56, SD = 1.32), there- picture morphing task (i.e., when children were naïve as fore signifcantly later than adults [t(53) = 15.51, p < 0.001] to the second interpretation, but were continuously shifted and early switching children [t(27) = 8.80, p < 0.001]. towards that interpretation). Heat maps were created for each of the ffteen pictures— It is plausible to assume that children switched so late separately displayed for the early and late switching group due to the rather impoverished silhouette type displays of (Fig. 3). These heat maps color-code the density of fxation objects. While we cannot fully rule out that children strug- locations (weighted with regards to the duration of the fxa- gled more than adults with the stimuli, all children were tion). In other words, they illustrate the allocation of visual able to name animals based on line drawings in the word attention to the pictures with warmer colors indicating more naming check prior to the picture morphing task. Although attention. As evident in Fig. 3, children who recognized stimuli in the middle were highly ambiguous and suggestive the duck later focused mainly on the eye for the frst nine of more than one interpretation, “other” reports for chil- pictures; whereas, children who identifed the duck earlier dren (and adults) did not peak at the most ambiguous fgure. allocated their attention also on a second area (i.e., the area Instead, they were equally distributed across all picture posi- around the beak). Also, earlier switching children seemed tions (Fig. 1b). Critically, adults gave similar “other” reports to be more attentive to actual changes between the pictures as did children (e.g., “dinosaur” in the cat–swan picture set)

1 3 Psychological Research and a comparable proportion of sets had to be excluded in picture sets (i.e., snail–whale: n = 27; horse–seal: n = 29), both participant groups. Also, children and adults found it these sets did not produce enough variance in responses to harder to reverse the horse–seal picture set compared to the separate groups into early and late switchers. That is, more other sets. than 80% of participants reported the second object at— One may argue that the word naming check prior to the or later than—picture #11. For meaningful insights from picture morphing task primed children to search for those an ROI analysis we would have to select new picture sets same animals. This, however, should have made the task that produce more variance. Because we further wanted easier for children and cannot explain their delayed recogni- to establish at which age children would reach adult level tion of the second object. Children who used more exten- performance, we opted against changing the picture sets in sive search strategies—as suggested by longer and a higher Experiment 2 that would have allowed for such analysis. number of fxations as well as longer saccades—identifed the second object earlier. For one of the picture sets, quali- tative analysis of fxation patterns revealed an interesting Experiment 2 trend. Children who switched later focused mainly on the eye of the fgure, while children who recognized the second Participants object earlier were also able to direct their attention to other regions. They still, however, did not reach adult level per- Fifty-four 4- to 9-year olds (Mage = 83.41 months; formance. Children in all age groups required more pictures SD = 14.52, age range 55–113, 26 girls) from fve nurser- before they reported the second object compared to adult ies and one school in Germany took part. Three additional participants, with no signifcant age improvements. children failed to complete at least two sets of the picture In Experiment 2, we, therefore, extended the age (up to morphing task and were excluded. Children’s parents gave 9 years) to examine at which age the ability to report the written informed consent. Ethical approval was granted by second object in the picture morphing task improves. In the Ethics Panel of the University of Salzburg, following the addition, we measured theory of mind and inhibitory skills, principles expressed in the Declaration of Helsinki. using a diferent type of measurement. Advanced theory of For later analysis, we spilt the sample into mind skills were measured using Happé’s strange stories four similar-sized groups: 5.5-year olds: (n = 13, (O’Hare, Bremner, Nash, Happé, & Pettigrew, 2009). This Mage = 63.79 months, age range 55–70), 6.5-year olds task was previously used to assess mentalizing skills in (n = 13, Mage = 76.85 months, age range 72–85), 7.5-year middle childhood (Devine & Hughes, 2013) and was con- olds (n = 14, Mage = 90.21 months, age range 86–93), and sequently regarded as an appropriate task for our sample. 8.5-year olds (n = 14, Mage = 100.79 months, age range Further, because the day/night Stroop task by Gerstadt et al., 94–113). (1994) was not related to the picture morphing task, we sub- stituted the Stroop task with the Simon task (picture test) Design by Davidson, Amso, Anderson, and Diamond (2006). This task is also appropriate for the age range tested but assesses Each child was exposed to the picture morphing task of slightly diferent skills. While the Stroop task in Experiment Experiment 1. A test of advanced theory of mind (strange 1 requires the inhibition of conceptually incompatible stim- stories suitable for 4- to 9-year olds, Happé, 1994; O’Hare, uli, which is expected to be developed in middle childhood, Bremner, Nash, Happé, & Pettigrew, 2009) and a Simon task participants in the Simon task need to inhibit responses that (picture test, Davidson et al., 2006) were administered. Task are spatially incompatible with the stimuli. In other words, order followed a Latin square design. it examines competition at the stimulus response level (Liu, Banich, Jacobson, & Tanabe, 2004), which we deem relevant Procedure and materials in our task where local changes increasingly fail to match the global representation of the animal. Test of advanced theory of mind Although qualitative analysis of fxation patterns revealed an interesting trend, we did not include eye-tracking metrics Three strange stories based on Happé (1994) were admin- in the follow-up experiment. We were able to confdently istered: lie (dentist), forget (doll) and misunderstand- measure number and duration of fxations as well as saccade ing (glove). We selected these three stories because they length in Experiment 1. Yet, the restricted number of valid showed variance in performance even in 5-year olds (O’Hare sets for which we had eye tracking data only allowed us to et al., 2009). For example, in the dentist story children were link fxation location with the actual interpretation of the told about John, who hates going to the dentist. Anytime picture in one picture set in Experiment 1. While we would John has toothache, he needs a flling and that hurts. At the have had enough data for a similar analysis in two other moment John has bad toothache but when his mother asks

1 3 Psychological Research him whether he has toothache he says “No, Mummy.” Pro- 1. This analysis of variance (ANOVA) for participant group tagonists in these stories made statements they did not mean (children vs. adults) revealed a highly signifcant diference literally, and children were asked “Was it true what X said?” between children and adults [F(1, 128) = 40.77, p = 0.001, and “Why did X say this?” Scoring followed O’Hare et al. η2= 0.24]. Children reported the second object on aver- (2009). age two pictures later (M = 10.54, SD = 1.91) than adults (M = 8.38, SD = 1.89) (Fig. 1a). Simon task Restricting the ANOVA to children (5.5-year olds, 6.5- year olds, 7.5-year olds, and 8.5-year olds with 13–14 Color pictures of frogs and butterfies appeared on the left or children in each group) showed that the youngest children right side of the computer screen. Children were instructed (M = 11.89, SD = 1.06) needed signifcantly more pictures to press the green bell, if they saw a frog, and the pink bell, to identify the emerging animal compared to the 7.5-year if they saw a butterfy. In congruent trials, animals appeared olds (M = 9.92, SD = 1.79) and the oldest children (M = 9.49, on the same side as the assigned bell; in incongruent trials, SD= 2.07) [F(3, 50) = 5.36, p = 0.003, η2= 0.24; post hoc they appeared on the opposite side, and in mixed trials on Bonferroni corrected all p’s< 0.05]. No signifcant difer- both sides. Every condition consisted of 20 pictures, pre- ence was found between 5.5- and 6.5-year olds (M = 10.98, sented for 750 ms each, followed by a black fxation cross. SD = 1.72; post hoc Bonferroni: p = 1) (Fig. 1c, right panel). Children received an initial practice with fve pictures. We The frst three age groups reported the second object sig- used accuracy (i.e., pressing the green bell upon a frog’s nifcantly later than adult participants (post hoc Bonferroni appearance, and the pink bell upon the butterfy’s appear- corrected all p’s < 0.05), with the oldest age group approach- ance) as the measure. ing adult level performance (post hoc Bonferroni corrected p = 0.20).

Results Correlation between performance in the picture morphing task with other cognitive abilities Picture morphing Children achieved a mean score of 4.35 (SD = 1.78) out Seven percent of all responses comprised “other” responses, of a possible maximum score of 6 in the test of advanced equally distributed over the course of the task (Fig. 1b, mid- theory of mind. In the Simon task, children made signif- dle panel). The most sets had to be excluded in the cat/swan cantly fewer errors in congruent trials (M = 1.46, SD= 2.44) (22%) and snail/whale (22%) picture sets with only a few than in incongruent trials (M = 2.54, SD= 2.87), t(51) = 3.87, exclusions for duck/rabbit (4%) and horse/seal (7%). On p < 0.001, or mixed trials (M = 2.44, SD= 3.27), t(51) = 3.41, average, children completed 3.44 ± 0.74 sets (2 sets: n = 8; p = 0.001, which did not difer, t(51) = 0.26, p = 0.79. We 3 sets: n = 14; 4 sets: n = 32). As they progressed from set 1 again calculated correlations and partial correlations (con- through to set 4, the average number at which they identifed trolling for age) to assess a connection between inhibitory the second object stayed relatively constant.4 As in Experi- control and theory of mind with performance in the picture ment 1, children recognized the second object later in the morphing task. horse–seal picture set compared to the other three sets.5 Age correlated with all measures. Performance in the As in Experiment 1, the picture number at which children picture morphing task correlated with all measures in the reported the second object was averaged across all valid sets Simon task. Theory of mind also correlated with perfor- and compared against performance of adults in Experiment mance in the congruent and incongruent trials of the Simon task. None of these correlations remained signifcant after controlling for age (upper half of Table 2). 4 A repeated-measures analysis for the average picture number at which a switch was reported was calculated for set order (set 1–set 4) as independent variable. This analysis revealed a small but signifcant Discussion efect [F(3, 93) = 2.76, p = 0.046; η2 = 0.08] with a beneft for set 3 compared to the other sets. This efect, however, did not survive Bon- ferroni correction for multiple comparison. The aim of the second experiment was to look at the devel- 5 A repeated-measures analysis for picture set (duck–rabbit, cat– opmental trajectory in the picture morphing task beyond swan, horse–seal, snail–whale) showed a signifcant efect: F(3, pre-school age and to further investigate the relation with 93) = 5.92, p < 0.01; η2 = 0.16. Children identifed the second object theory of mind and inhibitory skills. The ability to identify later in the horse–seal picture set compared to all other picture sets the second object improved reliably from 4 years to 9 years, (pairwise t test; all p’s< 0.05), although the comparison of the horse– seal vs. snail–whale sets fell short of signifcance after Bonferroni with older children needing signifcantly fewer pictures to correction. update their representation of the visual stimuli compared to

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Table 2 Correlations [partial 1 2 3 3a 3b 3c correlations controlling for age] between picture morphing, 1. Picture morphing – [− 0.015] [0.111] [0.115] [0.080] [0.098] theory of mind, Simon task 2. Theory of mind − 0.208 – [− 0.132] [− 0.138] [− 0.097] [− 0.113] (congruent, incongruent and mixed), and age in Experiment 3. Simon task 0.349* − 0.321* – [0.880***] [0.824***] [0.889***] 2 (a) Congruent 0.364** − 0.336* 0.917*** – [0.621***] [0.719***] (b) Incongruent 0.301* − 0.275* 0.870*** 0.726*** – [0.532***] (c) Mixed 0.285* − 0.265+ 0.906*** 0.777*** 0.628*** – 4. Age (months) − 0.516*** 0.402** − 0.547*** − 0.579*** − 0.491*** − 0.426***

+ p <0.1, *p <0.05, **p <0.01, ***p ≤ 0.001 (two-tailed) younger children. Replicating Experiment 1, we again failed performance in our continuous ambiguous fgures task. Pre- to fnd a connection with inhibition and theory of mind vious research has found inconsistent evidence for a link despite using a refned measurement. Also, children were between reversals and false belief, with two studies showing able to identify catch trials successfully, showing that they a link (Gopnik & Rosati, 2001; Mitrof et al., 2006); while are in principle capable of inhibiting prepotent responses more recent evidence (Doherty & Wimmer, 2005; Wimmer when faced with a completely diferent image. It is, there- & Doherty, 2011) failed to fnd a direct link between false fore, unlikely that inhibitory defcits can account for the belief and reversals. Studies that found a relationship inter- developmental efects found in our study. preted the link as refecting a common reliance on actively contrasting perspectives. The late switch to the second object in the picture morphing series, however, suggests that General discussion switching requires a strong external drive in young children (i.e., when the picture represents predominantly the second To date, there are only a handful studies investigating how object) which may not rely on the ability to abstractly con- children reverse ambiguous fgures. These studies typi- trast perspectives. cally fnd that young children never spontaneously reverse Instead, stronger inhibitory skills facilitated reversals in (Girgus et al., 1977; Gopnik & Rosati, 2001; Mitrof et al., a previous set of studies (Wimmer & Doherty, 2011) which 2006; Rock & Mitchener, 1992; Wimmer & Doherty, 2011) suggested that only if the current interpretation can be inhib- and even 10-year olds still show lower reversal rates than ited, can the second interpretation be identifed. Critically, adults (Ehlers et al., 2016). Children until the age of fve performance can either beneft from a top–down inhibitory are only able to alternate between two interpretations of an insight (i.e., knowing what to inhibit) or from a more general ambiguous fgure when they are informed about the second bottom–up inhibitory strength (i.e., having enough power interpretation beforehand (i.e., content informed reversal). to inhibit; Wimmer & Doherty, 2011). If performance was The present set of studies used a continuous version of the predicted by the Simon task (Experiment 2), but not by the ambiguous fgures task to measure how children switch to Stroop task (Experiment 1), it would favor the latter expla- a second interpretation under conditions where they were nation. While the Stroop task assesses the ability to inhibit naïve as to the second object and where each change in the cognitive interference, the Simon task requires interference picture increasingly supported the alternative interpretation. resolution at the stimulus response level. Neither the correla- In both experiments, we found that children switched tion with the Stroop task (Experiment 1) nor the correlation much later than adult participants. Performance in the pic- with the Simon task (Experiment 2) remained signifcant ture morphing task improved with age—as demonstrated after controlling for age, which suggests that improvements in Experiment 2—with 8.5-year olds (M = 9.49) starting in the picture morphing task are not explained by improve- to approach the level of adult participants (M = 8.38). Our ments in inhibitory strength. results are, therefore, in line with earlier fndings showing The late shift in our child sample may instead refect limi- an improvement with age on reversals of ambiguous fgures tations in working memory capacity, particularly as working (Ehlers et al., 2016; Girgus et al., 1977; Gopnik & Rosati, memory measures are typically correlated with inhibition 2001; Mitrof et al., 2006; Rock & Mitchener, 1992; Wim- measures (Davidson et al., 2006). Indeed, switching to a new mer & Doherty, 2011). interpretation requires mental manipulation. In addition to We further investigated whether children who possessed perceiving the picture, participants have to go through dif- advanced theory of mind understanding and strong inhibi- ferent interpretation alternatives at the same time, a process tory skills would recognize the second object sooner in the that particularly young children may fnd too taxing. Data picture morphing task. None of these measures predicted from a pilot study, however, speak against this explanation.

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There we presented 5- to 6-year-old children6 with a manual Experiment 1) identifed the second object earlier. Typi- version of this task where we asked them to sort the pictures cally, a larger number of fxations are associated with being into a “rabbit” or a “duck” box. Despite a clear reduction in a novice to a scene (Kelly, Rainford, Darcy, Kavanagh, & working memory load (i.e., children had to simply compare Toomey, 2016), thus requiring more fxations to cover the the picture with the target pictures on the boxes), children visual space. In this respect, it is plausible that more fxa- still needed signifcantly more pictures before they reported tions indicate acknowledging novelty to a stimulus in our the second object compared to adult participants reported task. However, none of our children were experts, and it is, in Stöttinger, Guay, Danckert and Anderson (2018); [F(1, therefore, possible that a larger number of fxations have led 115) = 21.50, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.16]). to a beneft of fnding crucial cues. A focus on specifc parts The exceptionally late shift could potentially refect a of an ambiguous stimulus (e.g., the rabbit’s ears) will favor motivation issue, especially in our youngest children. Odic, one interpretation (rabbit) over the other (Tsal & Kolbet, Hock, and Halberda (2014) showed that a history of difcult, 1985). Although Wimmer and Doherty (2007) failed to fnd low-confdence perceptual decisions resulted in degraded evidence for a causal relation between search patterns and performance in subsequent easier decisions in 4- to 5-year- reversals of ambiguous fgures in 3- to 5-year olds, our quali- old children. This perceptual hysteresis (i.e., “…the persis- tative ROI analysis did show an interesting trend: children tence of the initially established percept despite the evidence who recognized the duck earlier showed a broader allocation reaching values that favor the alternative percept”; p. 2; Odic of attention than children who identifed the duck later. It et al., 2014) was explained by a tendency to guess without remains unclear why some children adopted a more exten- paying attention to the actual sensory input. Only when the sive looking pattern than others. None of the indicators that task was easy enough did they re-attend. Although a lack we had in mind (i.e., false belief and inhibition) correlated of trying could potentially account for our data, Odic et al. with eye-tracking measures. (2014) only found evidence for perceptual hysteresis when However, even if children benefted from a higher number children were provided with explicit (i.e., correct/incorrect) of fxations, and a more diverse looking pattern, only the feedback. This efect disappeared after explicit feedback oldes children started to approach adult level performance. was removed. Given that no explicit feedback was provided Assuming that scanning strategies were not the main causal in our picture morphing task, we deem it unlikely that low factor for this difference, successful recognition of the motivation due to constant discouraging feedback could fully emerging animal may additionally require high-level (cogni- account for our data. Also, our eye tracking data confrm that tive) search strategies. Adult participants consistently report children were paying attention to the stimuli throughout the the target object at a point when the picture still represents procedure. more the frst object than the second. Interestingly, this is It is also possible that the delayed switch to the second only the case when the picture is presented in a gradual con- interpretation in the picture morphing task refects a deeper text compared to when the same picture is presented outside conceptual issue in children. French, Menendez, Herrmann, of the morphing context (Egré, Ripley, & Verheyen, 2018; Evans, and Rosengren (2018), for example, showed that chil- Stöttinger et al. 2018; Stöttinger, Sepahvand, Danckert, & dren (in particular) and adults (to a lesser extent) had persis- Anderson, 2016). This efect is reversed after damage to tent problems reasoning about certain types of changes in the right hemisphere: right-brain-damaged patients need biological organism that occur over the life-span (e.g., the signifcantly more pictures to identify the emerging object metamorphosis of a caterpillar changing into a butterfy). when it is presented in the gradual compared to the indi- Confronted with an unfamiliar animal, children and adults vidual condition (Stöttinger et al., 2018). It is speculated apply the default cognitive constraint that physical features that healthy adult participants use high-level “exploratory” remain stable across the life-cycle. This constraint helps us search strategies (e.g., it started out as a duck, but what else to maintain an image of a stable world in which ducks do not could it be?)—an exploration strategy that may be impaired change into rabbits. The acknowledgement of such metamor- after damage to the right hemisphere (Danckert et al., 2012; phosis increases with age as children become more familiar Mohammadi Sepahvand, Stöttinger, Danckert, & Anderson, with the concept. This could explain why younger children 2014). Such exploration strategies may also be late develop- retained a stronger bias to resist such changes than older ing in children. children and adults. The very late shift in children and in right-brain-dam- Alternatively, eye tracking data of Experiment 1 showed aged patients might be the result of a fundamentally difer- that children who employed a more extensive exploration ent exploration strategy compared to healthy adults. When strategy (i.e., longer and higher number of fixations in one object gradually morphs into another in the picture morphing task, focusing on locally changing elements does not support identifcation of the object. Only the ability to 6 N = 40; Mage = 66.90 ± 4.25 months; 19 girls. impose a holistic, “Gestalt-like” template (Van de Cruys

1 3 Psychological Research et al., 2014) of an imagined object onto the current item style can account for our fndings. Future studies will have enables the exploration of potential fts (see Rock et al. to investigate whether it is indeed a local processing style 1994; Wimmer & Doherty, 2011 for the same argument in that hinders children to switch to the second interpreta- the context of ambiguous fgures). A local bias can explain tion, or whether children’s ability to explore and generate why children and right-brain-damaged patients struggle to plausible alternative interpretations or the default heuristic recognize the second object. The suggestion here is that for of assuming feature stability is causing the delay in their the patients, damage to the right hemisphere has disrupted performance. global processing; while for the children, these processes have yet to fully develop (Moses et al., 2002 for a review). Acknowledgements Open access funding provided by Paris Lodron University of Salzburg. This research was fnancially supported by an For example, when confronted with a shape (e.g., the letter Austrian Science Fund project (I140-G15) “Counterfactual reasoning H) composed of smaller elements (e.g., small As), right- in children” as part of the ESF EUROCORES LogiCCC initiative. brain-damaged patients are able to remember details but not Collaboration amongst researchers was supported by a Mercator-Fel- the overall pattern, while results are reversed in patients with lowship with the DFG grant (SP 279/18-2), NSERC (#261628-07), HSF (#NA 6999), CIHR (#219972), and FWF (V480-B27). We thank a damage to the left side of the brain (Delis, Robertson, the nurseries that assisted us with the studies, and Julia Pichlmeier, & Efron, 1986). Similarly, right-brain-damaged patients Felicitas Romer, Nina Blahak, Marlene Schmidt and Stephanie Weber typically comment on the local changes in the picture mor- for help with data collection and coding. We also thank Florian Hutzler phing task (e.g., duck, duck with beak open, duck with a for provision of the eye-tracking facilities. wider beak, duck looking up, etc.) but struggle to shift to Data availability The data that support the fndings of this study are a new interpretation (i.e., rabbit; Stöttinger et al., 2014). available on OSF “Continuous ambiguous fgures task” at https​://osf. The same local over global bias is found in children. For io/jx5nt​/. example, 6-year olds use a local “piecemeal approach” when asked to copy a Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure. That is, Compliance with ethical standards they tend to copy one small detail after the other instead of starting with the global shape and adding details after- Conflict of interest The authors declare no confict of interest. wards (Akshoomof & Stiles, 1995a; Akshoomof & Stiles, 1995b; Martens, Hurks, & Jolles, 2014). In a similar vein, Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attri- bution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adapta- when confronted with the Kanizsa illusion (i.e., black “pac- tion, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long man” shapes arranged to induce a contour illusion of a bright as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, white triangle in the middle) 4-year olds focus more on the provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes local—illusion inducing “pacman” shapes, while 7-year old were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated children show an adult-like bias towards the global “illusory otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in middle shape” (Nayar, Franchak, Adolph, & Kiorpes, 2015). the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not This shift from a local to a global processing style is accom- permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will panied by a developing hemispheric specialization in the need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativeco​ mmons​ .org/licen​ ses/by/4.0/​ . brain. Moses et al. 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