The development of concepts of both the mind and brain is examined in subjects from preschool age through adulthood. While young children begin with undifferentiated conceptions of the mind and brain, in subsequent developments these concepts are differentiated along ontological and functional lines. (Author/RH)

Four studies explored preschoolers' understanding of thought bubbles depicted in cartoons. Few three- and four-year olds knew what a thought-bubble depiction was without instruction, but if simply told that the thought bubble "shows what someone is thinking," the majority easily understood the devices as depicting thoughts generally and…

Four experiments investigated three- and four-year-old children's knowledge of projective size-distance and projective shape-orientation relationships. Results indicated that preschool children's understanding of these relationships seems at least partly cognitive rather than wholly perceptive, providing further evidence for the acquisition of…

Two studies explored preschool children's beliefs about the relationship between perceptually based similarity among things and their predicted behaviors by focusing on form-function correspondences. Perceptual similarity, if motivated by intuitive beliefs about correspondences between form and function was found to be sufficient basis for…

Describes a pilot project with two objectives: 1) to develop measures of curiosity and exploration applicable to preschool children, and 2) to investigate the relationship between variations in exploratory behavior and other aspects of emotional and cognitive growth. (WY)

Two studies of development of spatial representation with two dimensions found that children as young as five years use the same two independent dimensions in fine-grained spatial coding of location in a circle as adults use--radius and angle. The adult pattern, where angle as well as radius is coded hierarchically, emerges by nine years. (HTH)

Deals with (1) developmental changes in children's concepts of difficulty and ability and (2) individual differences within different developmental levels. Three levels of understanding of ability and difficulty are proposed, and cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence of progressive development through the stages is presented. (Author/RH)

Two experiments investigated the relationship between family size and "theory of mind." Results from an experiment with three- and four-year olds showed that children from larger families were better able than children from smaller families to predict a story character's mistaken (false-belief based) action. (MDM)