The present study tested the hypothesis that verbal labels support category induction by providing compact hypotheses. Ninety-seven 4- to 6-year-old children (M = 63.2 months; 46 female, 51 male; 77% White, 8% more than one race, 4% Asian, and 3% Black; tested 2018) and 90 adults (M = 20.1 years; 70 female, 20 male) in the Midwestern United States…

Australian children aged 6-9 years (N = 120, 71 females; data collected in 2021-2022) were tasked with remembering the locations of 1, 3, 5, and 7 targets hidden under 25 cups on different trials. In the critical test phase, children were provided with a limited number of tokens to allocate across trials, which they could use to mark target…

This 5-year longitudinal study examined whether high mathematics achievers in primary school had cognitive advantages before entering formal education. High mathematics achievement was defined as performing above Pc 90 in Grades 1 and 3. The predominantly White sample (M[subscript age] in preschool: 64 months) included 31 high achievers (12 girls)…

Why are spatial metaphors, like the use of "high" to describe a musical pitch, so common? This study tested one hundred and fifty-four 3- to 5-year-old English-learning children on their ability to learn a novel adjective in the domain of space or pitch and to extend this adjective to the untrained dimension. Children were more…

Cognitive effort is costly and this cost likely influences the activities in which children engage. Yet, little is known about how school-age children perceive cognitive effort. The subjective value of cognitive effort, that is, how valuable or costly effort is perceived, was investigated in seventy-three 7- to 12-year-olds using an effort…

This study investigated the relationship between task difficulty and ability level as a factor in producing imitative behavior in infants. A total of 28 toddlers, ranging in age from 14 to 28 months, participated in the study. (Author/JMB)

Three studies investigated preschoolers' reasoning about ability. Findings suggested sensitivity to mental state information when judging another child's ability, and they perceived positive correlations between effort and academic success, and "niceness" and high academic ability. Comparisons with 9- to 10-year-olds suggest that…

Results of three experiments support the conclusion that tasks involving the localization of objects or events from mirror images are not direct indices of self-recognition among children between 14 and 22 months of age. Rather, they indicate the skill of infants in using the mirror as a perceptual tool. (RH)

Results of four studies confirmed the hypothesis that three year olds would have less difficulty inferring that another person holds an odd belief about a matter of taste or value than they have in inferring that another person holds a false belief about a matter of verifiable fact. (RH)

Undertaken within the framework of the best example theory of categorization, this study investigates category acquisition as a function of initial exposure to only good exemplars and as a function of exposure to single as opposed to multiple exemplars. Six severely handicapped children, ranging in age from 8 to 18 years, participated. (Author/MP)

In three experiments, children of three through six years of age were generally better able to reproduce a perceiver's perspective if a visual cue in the perceiver's line of sight was salient. Children had greater difficulty when the task hinged on attending to configural cues. Availability of distinctive cues affixed to objects facilitated…

Selected cognitive developments presumed to mediate the development of achievement motivation are described. Age trends for four causal schemes involving the concepts of effort and ability from 5 to 13 years of age are presented. Developments related to ability, task difficulty, and incentive value are also described. (Author/JMB)

Twenty preschoolers and 10 student teachers were asked to reconstruct the complete layout of their classroom by using a small-scale model as well as by using life-size furniture in the classroom itself. Children's performances were significantly better in the classroom than they were on the model. (Author/MP)

This study of 114 children between seven and nine years used a procedure for directly observing child-produced and experimenter-produced strategies to examine the transitional period of strategy development. Findings revealed gradual changes in children's ability to produce, and to benefit from, a strategy of selective attention. (RH)

Four studies determined when first, second, and third graders recognize that they make inferences to understand text, and the effect of this recognition on their ability to revise text and monitor its informativeness. Younger children tended to attribute inferred information to the text, while older children clearly distinguished inferred and…