Sara Cordes’s research while affiliated with Boston College and other places

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Publications (23)


Participation in Intensive Orchestral Music Training Does Not Cause Gains in Executive Functioning, Self-Perception, or Attitudes Toward School in Young Children
  • Article
  • Publisher preview available

July 2023

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64 Reads

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2 Citations

Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts

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Sara Cordes

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Ellen Winner

Research investigating effects of music instruction on executive functioning (EF) has yielded mixed results, relying only on a small and inadequate number of true randomized and controlled experiments (Degé & Frischen, 2022). We report here an experimental study of the effects of 2 years of school-based orchestral music training on young children’s EF, self-perception, and school-liking, all of which showed no effect. Children were randomly chosen either to participate in one of three intensive, high-dosage, El Sistema-inspired school-based orchestral music programs or to be part of a control group receiving standard, general music education (which normally does not include mastering a musical instrument) as part of their regular school day. Children were tested at baseline (end of kindergarten), after 1 year, and after 2 years (end of second grade) on four measures of EF, two measures of self-perception, and one measure of school-liking. All students were randomly assigned to the music group or a control group, and baseline differences between the groups were not statistically significant. Despite the intensity of the orchestral music program, no significant effects were found at any timepoint for any measures. We stress the importance of publishing null findings in light of psychology’s replication crisis, the common misrepresentation of correlational findings as causal, and the difficulties that exist in demonstrating far transfer effects. We conclude by cautioning against the justification of music education on the basis of extramusical outcomes, and instead suggest a focus on the intrinsic value of music education itself.

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Juvenile Graphical Perception: A Comparison between Children and Adults

March 2022

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1 Read

Data visualization is pervasive in the lives of children as they en-counter graphs and charts in early education and online media.In spite of this prevalence, our guidelines and understanding ofhow children perceive graphs stem primarily from studies con-ducted with adults. Previous psychology and education researchindicates that children’s cognitive abilities are different from adults.Therefore, we conducted a classic graphical perception study on apopulation of children aged 8–12 enrolled in the Ivy After SchoolProgram in Boston, MA and adult computer science students en-rolled in Northeastern University to determine how accuratelyparticipants judge differences in particular graphical encodings. We record the accuracy of participants’ answers for five encodingsmost commonly used with quantitative data. The results of ourcontrolled experiment show that children have remarkably similargraphical perception to adults, but are consistently less accurateat interpreting the visual encodings. We found similar effective-ness rankings, relative differences in error between the differentencodings, and patterns of bias across encoding types. Based on ourfindings, we provide design guidelines and recommendations forcreating visualizations for children. This paper and all supplementalmaterials are available at https://osf.io/ygrdv.


Prior Studies of Symbolic Number Abilities in DHH Children
Math Abilities in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children: The Role of Language in Developing Number Concepts

June 2021

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153 Reads

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26 Citations

Psychological Review

Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children who are not exposed to fluent sign language from birth generally fall behind their hearing peers in mathematics. These disparities are pervasive and emerge as young as 3 years old and continue throughout adulthood. While these limitations have been well-documented, there has been little attempt to empirically explain why one consequence of deafness seems to reflect difficulties with numbers and mathematics. The purpose of this review is to describe the math abilities of DHH children while providing an explanation as to why we see this disparity. In particular, we review evidence suggesting that limited/reduced language access, particularly in the first few months of life, may play a role in delaying the acquisition of early number concepts and its potential interference when solving math problems. We also consider the potential role executive functions, specifically working memory, play in mathematical learning and how lower working memory capacity seen in some DHH children may impact early numerical learning and task performance. Finally, we propose future research aimed to explain why deafness is often accompanied by difficulties in numerical cognition while informing our broader understanding of the relationship between language and numerical concepts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).


The impact of set size on cumulative area judgments

October 2020

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16 Reads

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8 Citations

Acta Psychologica

The ability to track number has long been considered more difficult than tracking continuous quantities. Evidence for this claim comes from work revealing that continuous properties (specifically cumulative area) influence numerical judgments, such that adults perform worse on numerical tasks when cumulative area is incongruent with number. If true, then continuous extent tracking abilities should be unimpeded by number. The aim of the present study was to determine the precision with which adults track cumulative area and to uncover the process by which they do so. Across two experiments, we presented adults with arrays of dots and asked them to judge the relative cumulative area of the displays. Participants performed worse and were slower on incongruent trials, in which the more numerous array had the smaller cumulative area. These findings suggest that number interferes with continuous quantity judgments, and that number is at least as salient as continuous variables, undermining claims in the literature that continuous properties are easier to represent, and more salient to adults. Our primary research question, however, pertained to how cumulative area representations were impacted by set size. Results revealed that the area of a single item was tracked much faster and with greater precision than the area of multiple items. However, for sets with more than one item, results revealed less accurate, yet faster responses, as set size increased, suggesting a speed-accuracy trade-off in judgments of cumulative area. Results are discussed in the context of two distinct theories regarding the process of tracking cumulative area.


Figure 2. Stimuli from Experiment 2 (left, middle) and Experiment 3 (right) across the two conditions.
Figure 3. Children's performance on Experiment 2 separated by condition and presented by notation block and ratio. Note. Error bars are standard error of the mean.
Number of Participants in Each Strategy Category
Fraction Magnitude: Mapping Between Symbolic and Spatial Representations of Proportion

September 2020

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99 Reads

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7 Citations

Journal of Numerical Cognition

Fraction notation conveys both part-whole (3/4 is 3 out of 4) and magnitude (3/4 = 0.75) information, yet evidence suggests that both children and adults find accessing magnitude information from fractions particularly difficult. Recent research suggests that using number lines to teach children about fractions can help emphasize fraction magnitude. In three experiments with adults and 9-12-year-old children, we compare the benefits of number lines and pie charts for thinking about rational numbers. In Experiment 1, we first investigate how adults spontaneously visualize symbolic fractions. Then, in two further experiments, we explore whether priming children to use pie charts vs. number lines impacts performance on a subsequent symbolic magnitude task and whether children differentially rely on a partitioning strategy to map rational numbers to number lines vs. pie charts. Our data reveal that adults very infrequently spontaneously visualize fractions along a number line and, contrary to other findings, that practice mapping rational numbers to number lines did not improve performance on a subsequent symbolic magnitude comparison task relative to practice mapping the same magnitudes to pie charts. However, children were more likely to use overt partitioning strategies when working with pie charts compared to number lines, suggesting these representations did lend themselves to different working strategies. We discuss the interpretations and implications of these findings for future research and education. All materials and data are provided as Supplementary Materials.


Preschoolers’ Number Knowledge Relates to Spontaneous Focusing on Number for Small, but Not Large, Sets

August 2020

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71 Reads

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10 Citations

Developmental Psychology

Much research has examined the reciprocal relations between a child's spontaneous focus on number (SFON) in the preschool years and later mathematical achievement. However, this literature relies on several different tasks to assess SFON with distinct task demands, making it unclear to what extent these tasks measure the same underlying construct. Moreover, prior studies have investigated SFON in the context of small sets exclusively, but no work has explored whether children demonstrate SFON for large sets and how this relates to children's math ability. In the current study, preschoolers were presented four distinct SFON tasks assessing their spontaneous attention to number for small (Experiment 1) and large (Experiment 2) sets of numbers. Results revealed performance across the four distinct SFON tasks was unrelated. Moreover, preschooler's SFON for small sets (1-4 items) was significantly stronger than that for large sets (10-40 items), and analyses revealed that number knowledge was only associated with SFON for small sets and not large. Together, findings suggest that SFON may not be a set-size-independent construct and instead may hinge upon a child's number knowledge, at least in the preschool years. The role of number language and how it relates to children's SFON are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).


What Do Biased Estimates Tell Us about Cognitive Processing? Spatial Judgments as Proportion Estimation

August 2019

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43 Reads

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9 Citations

Journal of Cognition and Development

Similar estimation biases appear in a wide range of quantitative judgments, across many tasks and domains. Often, these biases (those that occur, for example, when adults or children indicate remembered locations of objects in bounded spaces) are believed to provide evidence of Bayesian or rational cognitive processing, and are explained in terms of relatively complex Bayesian models (e.g., the Category Adjustment Model). Here, we suggest that some of these phenomena may be accounted for instead within a simpler alternative theoretical framework that has previously been found to explain bias in common numerical estimation tasks across development. We report data from university undergraduate students and 7- through 10-year-olds completing a speeded linear position reproduction task. Bias in both adults’ and children’s responses was effectively explained in terms of a relatively simple psychophysical model of proportion estimation. These data clearly show that the proportion estimation framework is a viable alternative to theories that explain biases as the result of a Bayesian cognitive adjustment process. We also discuss our view that these data are not easily reconciled with the requirements of the more complex Category Adjustment Model that assumes estimates should exhibit a central tendency bias.


What do biased estimates tell us about cognitive processing? Spatial judgments as proportion estimation

August 2019

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25 Reads

Similar estimation biases appear in a wide range of quantitative judgments, across many tasks and domains. Often, these biases (those that occur, for example, when adults or children indicate remembered locations of objects in bounded spaces) are believed to provide evidence of Bayesian or rational cognitive processing, and are explained in terms of relatively complex Bayesian models (e.g., CAM; Huttenlocher, Hedges, & Vevea, 2000). Here, we suggest that some of these phenomena may be accounted for instead within a simpler alternative theoretical framework that has previously been found to explain bias in common numerical estimation tasks across development. We report data from university undergraduate students and 7- through 10-year-olds completing a speeded linear position reproduction task. Bias in both adults’ and children’s responses was effectively explained in terms of a relatively simple psychophysical model of proportion estimation. These data clearly show that the proportion estimation framework is a viable alternative to theories that explain biases as the result of a Bayesian cognitive adjustment process. We also discuss our view that these data are not easily reconciled with the requirements of the more complex Category Adjustment Model that assumes estimates should exhibit a central tendency bias.


Probability range and probability distortion in a gambling task

June 2019

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43 Reads

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2 Citations

Acta Psychologica

In decision making under risk, adults tend to overestimate small and underestimate large probabilities (Tversky & Kahneman, 1992). This inverse S-shaped distortion pattern is similar to that observed in a wide variety of proportion judgment tasks (see Hollands & Dyre, 2000, for review). In proportion judgment tasks, distortion patterns tend not to be fixed but rather to depend on the reference points to which the targets are compared. Here, we tested the novel hypothesis that probability distortion in decision making under risk might also be influenced by reference points—in this case, references implied by the probability range. Adult participants were assigned to either a full-range (probabilities from 0–100%), upper-range (50–100%), or lower-range (0–50%) condition, where they indicated certainty equivalents for 176 hypothetical monetary gambles (e.g., “a 50% chance of 100,otherwise100, otherwise 0”). Using a modified cumulative prospect theory model, we found only minimal differences in probability distortion as a function of condition, suggesting no differences in use of reference points by condition, and broadly demonstrating the robustness of distortion pattern across contexts. However, we also observed deviations from the curve across all conditions that warrant further research.


Citations (19)


... Scholars, indeed, have reflected on the intrinsic value of the musical experience [139], and on whether the categorisation between intrinsic and extrinsic benefits when discussing the value of music in school is robust and helpful [140]. Another promising approach to the conceptualisation of musical training's impact and benefits [141] showed that participation in intensive music training is not associated with improvement in executive functioning and self-perception. Nonetheless, it highlighted the importance of the intrinsic value of music education itself. ...

Reference:

Playing music together: Exploring the impact of a classical music ensemble on adolescent’s life skills self-perception
Participation in Intensive Orchestral Music Training Does Not Cause Gains in Executive Functioning, Self-Perception, or Attitudes Toward School in Young Children

Psychology of Aesthetics Creativity and the Arts

... Further, they are not verbatim quotes from the original authors; others are welcome to augment or even present alternative interpretations of these works. Several of the papers we analyze are also exploratory in nature and do not necessarily draw explicit conclusions, e.g., [22,26], causing us to shy away from making stronger claims than the original authors themselves might allow. As new research is added or Draco is updated, the exact values in the results will shift; however, the focus of this work is on the overall pipeline rather than specific results. ...

Juvenile Graphical Perception: A Comparison between Children and Adults
  • Citing Conference Paper
  • April 2022

... All of these children may experience similar learning difficulties (LeClair & Saunders, 2019). Because of these characteristics, the age of diagnosis or the use of cochlear implants, on the one hand, and the behavioural and educational beliefs of parents, including communication style and the ability to use sign language, on the other, children with hearing impairment are not a homogeneous population (Santos & Cordes, 2022). In addition, the changed medical, educational and social context of deafness calls for the validation of previous research results in a new context of early diagnosis of hearing impairment (aided by new medical technologies) and advances in early medical, educational and social services, enabling more effective correction of the primary disorder and prevention of secondary disorders due to hearing impairment (Grigonis & Narkevi cien _ e, 2005). ...

Math Abilities in Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children: The Role of Language in Developing Number Concepts

Psychological Review

... On the other hand, there are also studies showing a lack of the intervention effect (Tian et al., 2021;Hurst et al., 2020) or a lack of the transfer effect (Nuraydin et al., 2022). For example, Nuraydin et al. (2020) found that a short, one-session training session involving estimating fractions on 0-1 number lines improved 5th-6th graders' estimates of fractions on 0-1 number lines, but did not transfer to estimates of fractions on 0-5 number lines, fraction comparison, or arithmetic immediately after training. ...

Fraction Magnitude: Mapping Between Symbolic and Spatial Representations of Proportion

Journal of Numerical Cognition

... For example, to determine where there is a larger food source, numerical processing (e.g., number of prey) and spatial processing (size of prey) are necessary. In numerical cognition, a distinction is therefore made between the processing of discrete quantities (i.e., number of elements in a set) and the processing of continuous quantities, like duration, size, length, etc. (Henik et al., 2012;Savelkouls and Cordes, 2020). Nonetheless, there is currently an intense debate about the neurocognitive systems underlying the processing of continuous and discrete quantities (see Núñez, 2017;Wilkey and Ansari, 2020). ...

The impact of set size on cumulative area judgments
  • Citing Article
  • October 2020

Acta Psychologica

... There are two broad ways in which researchers have attempted to measure children's SFON tendencies. One is to use an imitation task (Hannula et al., 2010;Nanu et al., 2018;Rathé et al., 2016;Rathé et al., 2018;Savelkouls et al., 2020). In such tasks a researcher may, while a child observes, feed plastic berries to a bird or post letters through a toy letterbox, and then ask the child to do exactly the same. ...

Preschoolers’ Number Knowledge Relates to Spontaneous Focusing on Number for Small, but Not Large, Sets

Developmental Psychology

... For example, people tend to treat color as categorical (see Harnad, 1987) but people regularly make nuanced judgments about color. Even when placing numbers on a number line, people often anchor their estimates to certain reference points such as the endpoints or midpoint, and yet people routinely make nuanced judgments about quantities (Zax et al., 2019). Do social categories exhibit similarly subtle influences on how people think about individuals along social dimensions or are social categories playing an even greater role in social domains (possibly because they are more complex, socially constructed categories)? ...

What Do Biased Estimates Tell Us about Cognitive Processing? Spatial Judgments as Proportion Estimation
  • Citing Article
  • August 2019

Journal of Cognition and Development

... The present findings corroborate these earlier ones, extending them to show that individual variation in longtermism beliefs is linked to notable enhancements in this capacity, which in turn have a positive association with pro-environmentalism. Besides confirming the importance of positive future thinking in environmental contexts, these results resonate with previous studies linking optimistic, and occasionally overconfident, perceptions about a preferred political candidate's support to heightened voter dedication [81]. Taken together, these findings suggest that wishful thinking about a desired future outcome can indeed inspire action towards achieving it. ...

Partisan mathematical processing of political polling statistics: It’s the expectations that count
  • Citing Article
  • May 2019

Cognition

... For example, with only a short period of experience comparing continuous proportional amounts (i.e., judging proportion in a context in which contrasting whole-number information is not available), children are less likely to rely on a numerical strategy in subsequent trials where discrete quantities are available (Boyer & Levine, 2015;Hurst & Cordes, 2018a). In addition, introducing children to equivalent proportions using categorical, as opposed to numerical, language may help them attend to the relations over absolute number (Hurst & Cordes, 2019). Thus, although numerical interference is evident early in development and remains in adulthood, the malleability of this numerical interference suggests that it may not be an inherent or necessary aspect of thinking about proportion. ...

Talking about proportion: Fraction labels impact numerical interference in non‐symbolic proportional reasoning
  • Citing Article
  • December 2018

Developmental Science

... To provide some context, Roberts (2020) wrote an Outlook paper in Learning & Behavior focused on a recent paper by Howard et al. (2019) in Science Advances (and an earlier study by the same group [Howard et al., 2018] in Science; see also Cordes, 2019). Briefly, Howard et al. (2019) reported that bees were presented with an initial pattern of yellow geometrical shapes and then were confronted with two additional yellow patterns; one choice pattern had one more element than the initial pattern (+1 training) and the other had a different number of elements. ...

Even bees know zero is less than one
  • Citing Article
  • October 2018

Learning & Behavior