Research to date has focused mostly on children's representation of their physical self as a prelude to the development of a theory of mind (ToM) and on their understanding of the self as distinct from others over time. Whether children approaching the well-known age of ToM mastery are also accurately appraising their own "body's"…

Seventy-nine 3- and 4-year-old children were tested on gaze-reporting ability and Wellman and Liu's (2004) continuous measure of theory of mind (ToM). Children were better able to report where someone was looking when eye and head direction were provided as a cue compared with when only eye direction cues were provided. With the exception of…

We test whether comparison can promote learning of new relational abstractions. In Experiment 1, preschoolers heard labels for novel spatial patterns and were asked to extend the label to one of two alternatives: one sharing an object with the standard or one having the same relational pattern as the standard. Children strongly preferred the…

This study examined the development of the episodic and semantic memory systems, with an emphasis on the emergence of the two aspects of the former: episodic memory (the ability to re-experience a past event) and episodic future thinking (the ability to pre-experience a future event). Three-, 4-, and 5-year olds were randomly assigned to one of…

A growing number of studies suggests cultural differences in the attention and evaluation of information in adults (Hedden, Ketay, Aron, Markus, & Gabrieli, 2008; Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Masuda & Nisbett, 2001). One cultural comparison, between Westerners, such as Americans, and Easterners, such as the Japanese, suggests that…

Two studies used a new paradigm to examine preschool children's (i.e., 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds) word learning across multiple sense modalities. In Study 1 (n = 60), children heard a word for an object that they touched but did not see, while word learning was examined using objects that were seen but not touched. In Study 2 (n = 60), children…

Learning names for parts of objects can be challenging for children, as it requires overcoming their tendency to name whole objects. We test whether comparing items can facilitate learning names for their parts. Applying the structure-mapping theory of comparison leads to two predictions: (a) young children will find it easier to identify a common…

Microgenetic methods were used to document young children's (N = 36; M age = 3;5) acquisition of false belief (FB) understanding and investigate developmental mechanisms. A control group received no experience with FB; 2 other groups received microgenetic sessions designed to promote FB understanding. Over consecutive weeks, microgenetic groups…