Presents four studies designed to explore the ability of 6- to 9-month-old infants to differentiate objects on the basis of configuration or structure and to recognize a particular configuration after varying experiences with it. It was found that 9-month-olds but not 6-month-olds were capable of recognizing the invariant form of objects.…

The early phase of imitation was studied in children between 6 and 18 months by means of the presentation of 22 actions. (SB)

Children aged 2 1/2, 3, and 3 1/2 years who had demonstrated appropriate uses for a set of objects, were asked to perform these same actions with objects which varied in similarity in the reference object, or with no object present. (JMB)

Examines the issue of object sorting in early infancy. Forty-eight infants at 6, 9, and 12 months were presented with eight sets of small, manipulable objects. At six months, selective manipulation was absent; at nine months, 94 percent of the infants sequentially touched similar objects and at 12 months 100 percent did so. (Author/DB)

Investigates the exploratory behavior of young children as it relates to individual differences in curiosity, the novelty of the objects explored, and the interactive style employed by an adult experimenter. (Author/MP)

Four-, five-, and six-year-old children were used as subjects in this investigation. There were 192 experimental and 96 control children used, divided equally between the three age groups. The experimental children received a 1-minute pretest exposure procedure in which 1/4 of the children observed 4 two-dimensional stimuli (irregular pentagons),…