| Popis: |
A growing body of research investigating plant-related cognition and behaviors demonstrates that plants have shaped human minds and societies and that pursuing empirical research in this area can yield new insights into many aspects of human cognition and development, including food learning, danger avoidance, and cultural transmission. This research would greatly benefit from a validated measure that assesses experience with plants early in life. Here we present the validation of a new measure to assess such experience: The Plant Experience Questionnaire (PEQ), filling a major gap in the literature on plant-related cognition in infancy and early childhood. The PEQ was tested on a sample of 576 caregivers who completed the questionnaire about their child (age = 5-81 months). Factorial analysis revealed a four-dimensional structure of the questionnaire: (1) experience with indoor plants, (2) experience with outdoor plants, (3) eating from plants, and (4) parental prohibition from touching plants. The PEQ displayed good psychometric properties as shown with satisfactory internal consistency and convergent and discriminant validity and is suitable for a broad age range from infancy to early childhood. Therefore, the PEQ is an efficient and valuable tool for assessing plant experience in early life via parental report. |
