Infants exposed to a set of artificially-created face stimuli having distinct mean and modal prototypes showed a pattern of behavior predicted by category abstraction models. Infants appeared to abstract, at the time of learning, a feature-count summary of the category displayed. (Author/RH)

Two experiments investigated infants' use of structural relations in dividing schematic drawings of animals into categories. Results demonstrated subjects' sensitivity to structural information like that thought by Rosch (1978) to exist in the natural world and their ability to segregate items into categories on the basis of clusters of correlated…

When 60 five-year-old and 48 10-year-old children heard three stories, each containing three target objects from each of three taxonomic categories, younger children received greater benefit than older children from strongly scripted story presentations and from constrained category-cue and script-cue retrieval conditions. Cues and the extent to…

This study contrasted two possible relations between reflection-impulsivity and analytic or holistic modes of processing. Although impulsive children were more holistic in the classification task, they made more errors than reflectives on matching tests, regardless of whether the content favored holistic processing. (RH)

Two experiments assessed the importance of form versus function in 2-year-old infants' categorizations. Nonsense objects were constructed to independently vary form and function. Adults differentially directed subjects' attention to one or the other stimulus dimension. It was hypothesized that children's conceptualizations would vary as a function…

Studies children's inductive inferences in order to investigate the development of the expectation that members of a category share unforeseen properties. Results indicate that preschoolers drew more inferences based on category membership than on perceptual appearances. (PCB)

When 96 mothers and 46 fathers of 6- or 13-month-old infants independently generated behavioral cues they believed contributed to their perception of their infant's recent easiness/difficultness, few systematic differences were found between easy and difficult infants, 6- and 13-month-olds, males and females, and firstborn and later-born.…

A total of 61 children from first through sixth grades participated in four balance-scale and four inclined-plane problem types in a study testing for invariance of subject classifications as rule-users across problems whose products differed but whose type did not. Results indicated that many children's classifications differed across…

The stability of standard score and probability method sociometric group assignments was examined over a two-year period with an initial group of 334 fifth graders. Popular, neglected, and controversial groups evidenced low stability of group members over intervals of approximately 1, 6, 12, 18, and 24 months. (Author/RH)

Changes in children's categorization behavior between 15 and 21 months of age and the relation of these changes to developments in language, object permanence, and means-end understanding are reported. (PCB)

Findings suggest that semantic knowledge for concrete objects is represented and organized in similar ways in autistic, retarded, and normal children. Previous findings on cognitive deficits in autistic children are more likely related to their inability to use cognitive representations in an appropriate and flexible manner. (Author/RH)

Investigates the perceptual basis of metaphor by asking 5-, 7-, and 10-year-old children and adults to pair and discuss films of natural objects, both stationary and moving. Concludes that motion information makes metaphoric similarity relatively easy to perceive and influences the form of descriptive metaphors. (Author/CB)

In two experiments 96 children and eight adults were tested for comprehension of the modifier-head relation in compounds such as apple-knife or were asked to label objects with compounds. Results show that by age three children reliably interpret novel compounds and made use of novel compounds to subcategorize. (RH)

Infants were tested in three studies of the acquisition and long-term retention of category-specific information. Results document retention of category-specific information after intervals of two weeks. (PCB)

Uses a reformation of Baumrind's typology of authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative parenting styles in the context of adolescent school performance. Authoritarian and permissive parenting were negatively associated with grades; authoritative parenting was positively associated with grades. (PCB)