Background: The ability to think analogically is central to the process of learning and understanding reality and there is a broad consensus among researchers that we can improve this ability. Immigrants who have emigrated from developing to developed countries tend to experience tremendous challenges in their early years as immigrants. Their…

In 3 studies (N = 188) we tested the hypothesis that children use a perceptual access approach to reason about mental states before they understand beliefs. The perceptual access hypothesis predicts a U-shaped developmental pattern of performance in true belief tasks, in which 3-year-olds who reason about reality should succeed, 4- to 5-year-olds…

The authors explore how children's play can support the development of the foundations of mathematics learning and how adults can support children's representation of--and thus the "mathematization" of--their play. The authors review research about the amount and nature of mathematics found in the free play of children. They briefly…

Examines preschoolers' understanding of non-observable causal mechanism in causes of illness. Three studies were conducted using subjects from university child care centers. Subjects average five years of age. Results indicated that preschoolers recognize that appearances may be deceiving when it comes to judging causes of illness. Discusses…

Studies have shown that perception of distance, orientation and size can be dissociated from action tasks. The action system seems to possess more veridical, unbiased information than the perceptual/verbal system. The current study examines the nature of the distinction between action and verbal responses in a spatial reasoning task. Participants…

In three experiments, four and six year olds and adults were examined to determine whether children were more likely than adults to confuse memories from different sources when the sources were highly similar. Findings indicated that children may be especially vulnerable to the effects of source similarity. (SH)

Used a Piagetian model to examine five 4-year-olds' perceptions of the reality of television characters. Found that children understand that television images are representations with varying degrees of relationship to reality and that children used a number of strategies for judging the extent to which characters were "real," such as…

A five-step model intervention called "Sensational Thinking," which incorporates readiness, reception, reflection, revelation, and re-creation activities, was evaluated with four kindergarten classes. Experimental groups showed increased creativity over control groups in solving paradoxical problems. The study is seen as supporting the premise…

Examined perception of object unity in partial occlusion in 72 infants. Recorded how long subjects looked at a display of complete and incomplete rods. In test and control conditions, infants looked longer at broken rods than at complete rods, suggesting that infants' cognitive, visual, or attentional skills may be insufficient to support…