РАЗСЪЖДЕНИЯ ПО АНАЛОГИЯ И ЕКЗЕКУТИВНИ ФУНКЦИИ ПРИ ДЕЦА НА 5 ГОДИШНА ВЪЗРАСТ
ANALOGY REASONING AND EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS IN 5-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN

Summary/Abstract: The relationship between analogical reasoning and executive functions in children has been established in many previous studies (Morrison et. al., 2004; Richland & Burchinal, 2013; Thibaut et al., 2010; Viskontas et. al., 2004). Our previous research has shown that there is a causal relationship between children‘s performance on inhibitory control tasks and their analogical reasoning abilities. However, the same effect between working memory and analogical reasoning was not demonstrated (Gotseva-Balgaranova & Mutafchieva, 2018). The present study aims to test whether there is a correlation between children‘s working memory and analogical reasoning. A total of 475 children with an average age of 5 years and 7 months were examined. We used a web-based test for cognitive development for 5-year-old children developed by Assoc. Prof. Milena Mutafchieva, PhD, Assist. Prof. Kristina GotsevaBalgaranova, Ph.D., and colleagues from the Child Development Laboratory of the NBU. Data analysis showed a statistically significant positive correlation between the executive functions total score and the analogy scale (r=0.379; p<0.001), between working memory and analogy (r=0.332; p<0.001), and between inhibitory control and analogy (r= 0.357; p<0.001). A relationship was found between the studies components of executive functions and reasoning by analogy. It should be noted that the tasks used in the test are the same as the tasks used in the study of Gotseva-Balgaranova and Mutafchieva (2018). Future research will focus on why the working memory relationship with analogical reasoning can be established only in correlational but not in experimental settings.

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