Reading disability (RD) may be characterized by reduced print-speech convergence, which is the extent to which neurocognitive processes for reading and hearing words overlap. We examined how print-speech convergence changes from children (mean age: 11.07±0.48) to adults (mean age: 21.33±1.80) in 86 readers with or without RD. The participants were…

This study examined age-related differences in the effectiveness of two generative learning strategies (GLSs). Twenty-five children aged 9-11 and 25 university students aged 17-29 performed a facts learning task in which they had to generate either a prediction or an example before seeing the correct result. We found a significant Age × Learning…

Teleological reasoning involves the assumption that entities exist for a purpose (giraffes have long necks for reaching leaves). This study examines how teleological reasoning relates to cultural context, by studying teleological reasoning in 61 Quechua-speaking Peruvian preschoolers (M[subscript age] = 5.3 years) and adults in an indigenous…

A crucial skill in scientific and everyday reasoning is the ability to interpret data. The present study examined how data features influence data interpretation. In Experiment 1, one hundred and thirty-three 9-year-olds, 12-year-olds, and college students (mean age = 20 years) were shown a series of data sets that varied in the number of…

Reports replication and extension of Elkind and Weiss's study of perceptual exploration using 122 Israeli children. In general, results were upheld and reflected the influence of school experiences seen most specifically in the right-left directionality expected to result from learning to read Hebrew. (WY)

Using hypothetical scenarios in which sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) can be transmitted, college freshmen and seniors were asked to explain why they believed the characters should or should nor engage in risky behaviors. Results indicated that seniors had a significantly higher stage of moral reasoning than the freshmen when responding to…

Interest in babies was assessed in 30 high school seniors and 32 college freshmen. Measures varied from passive perceptual responses to pictures, to behavioral reactions to a live baby in the presence and in the absence of an adult. (JMB)

Twelve child confederates (six male and six female) were trained to be responsive or unresponsive to 48 female college students. Adult women attended more to responsive children and gave more help to responsive than to unresponsive girls. The adults also rated the children as more attractive, likeable, and competent when the children behaved…

Seeks to demonstrate that age differences in the interpretation of moral judgment stimulus stories can reliably predict differences in patterns of moral evaluations. Also attempts to characterize the nature of these age-related interpretation differences. Stimulus stories represented each of Heider's levels of responsibility and varied in outcome…

Examined differences in perceptions of relationships in preadolescence, early adolescence, midadolescence, and late adolescence. Findings were largely consistent with seven propositions derived from major theories of the developmental courses of personal relationships. Discussion centers around the role that various relationships are perceived as…

Examines the relationship between the ease with which a picture is interpreted and the structural similarity between the picture and the subject it represents. Preschoolers, first graders, sixth graders, and college students participated in the study. (CW)

By varying task requirements within a common procedural framework, four experiments established conditions under which children exhibit different understandings of life. Overall, results suggested that even four- and five-year-olds know that people and other animals are alive and that almost all "inanimate objects" are not. (Author/RH)

Investigates the asserted differences in reasoning between adults and second, fourth, and sixth graders in a manipulation of variables task using class inclusion and story problems with common everyday situations. Results are discussed in terms of sensible reasoning and problem-solving skills. (CM)

Tests the effects of stimulus variability on overgeneralization and overdiscrimination errors in children and adults. The subjects (n=64), adults and five-, seven-, and nine-year-old children, participated in a visual discrimination task. (CM)