The current study examined children's spontaneous private speech during the vertical and the horizontal Tube Task to shed light on the cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes underlying tool innovation. Tool innovation is defined as solving a novel problem by using or modifying objects in a new and useful way without prior instructions.…

Two studies examined inferences drawn about the protagonist's emotional state in movies (Study 1) or audiobooks (Study 2). Children aged 5, 8, and 10 years old and adults took part. Participants saw or heard 20 movie scenes or sections of audiobooks taken or adapted from the TV show Lassie. An online measure of emotional inference was designed…

Recent studies suggest that there appears to be a similar developmental sequence in the understanding of mental states in both internal-state language and in standard theory-of-mind tasks. These findings suggest possible developmental relations between children's ability to talk and think about the mind. Two experiments investigated the concurrent…