Learning environments can support the development of foundational knowledge and promote children's attitudes toward learning and school. This study explores the relation between school enjoyment and general knowledge from preschool (2016-2017) to kindergarten (2017-2018) in 1359 children (M[subscript age] = 55, 61 months, female = 50%; 58.5%…

Recent work has probed the developmental mechanisms that promote fair sharing. This work investigated 2.5- to 5.5-year-olds' (N = 316; 52% female; 79% White; data collected 2016-2018) sharing behavior in relation to three cognitive correlates: number knowledge, working memory, and cognitive control. In contrast to working memory and cognitive…

During communication, conversational partners should offer as much information as is required and relevant. For instance, the statement "Some Xs Y" is infelicitous if one knows that all Xs Y. Do children understand the link between speaker knowledge and utterance strength? In Experiment 1, 5-year-olds (N = 32) but not 4-year-olds…

Three-, 5-, and 7-year-olds and adults (N = 64) listened to stories depicting 2 protagonists of different ages (infant and child or child and grownup) that encounter an entity that looks like a real (e.g., a snake) or an imaginary (e.g., a ghost) fear-inducing creature. Participants predicted and explained each protagonist's intensity of fear.…

In two studies of knowledge about the properties and processes of memory for the times of past events, 178 children from 5 through 13 years of age and 40 adults answered questions about how they would remember times on different scales, how temporal memory is affected by retention interval, and the usefulness of different methods. The adults…

Examined two- to four-year-olds' and adults' internalized representations of the sizes of buttons, plates, and shoes in five experiments. Results suggested that three- and four-year-olds had accurate knowledge of the typical sizes of buttons and plates. Two-year-olds demonstrated accurate internal representations of the sizes of shoes. (RJC)

A naming task using primary and secondary hues and achromatic stimuli was given to 669 preschool children. Results showed age and sex differences in performance and revealed an acquisition order similar to that found in related research and also similar to the proposed evolutionary order across cultures. (Author/JMB)

Two experiments examined young children's use of the familiarity principle when learning language. Found that even 2-year-olds successfully identified the referent of a proper name as the individual with whom the speaker was familiar. However, only 5-year-olds reliably succeeded at determining the individual with whom the speaker was familiar…

Examines young children's preferences and understanding regarding external and internal causes of behavior. Considers research in four areas: (1) knowledge of psychological states; (2) understanding that psychological states can cause behavior; (3) preference for internal versus external causes; and (4) discounting. (RJC)

Five experiments tested whether children understand pretense intentions before they understand pretense mental representations. Findings revealed that children did not understand that intention is crucial to pretense. Various methodological factors that might have compromised results such as force choice versus yes-no questions or using a…

Maintains that Lillard's and Joseph's articles provide an example of how apparently divergent empirical results may turn out to reflect interesting differences between children and adults. The researchers agreed that for young children, pretense is often, but not necessarily, intentional and neither found evidence for a representational…

Examined in 4 experiments 2-year-olds' knowledge of solidity in search tasks. Found no evidence that 2-year-olds represented solidity and support constraints on trajectories of falling objects; two experiments included 2.5-year-olds who succeeded on search tasks. Explored implications of 2-year-olds' poor performance in light of very young…

Four studies explored children's ability to differentiate future distances of events. Findings indicated that 4-year-olds failed to differentiate future distances. Five-year-olds could distinguish events occurring in coming weeks/months from those many months away. Six- through 8-year-olds made more differentiated judgments than younger children…

Studied the ages at which 240 children in grades one to five read and transformed times given in analog and digital displays, linked times to activities, and judged the order of hours in the day. Findings indicated that digital time reading was well developed by the first grade. (RJC)

In one experiment, infants and children were accurate in their judgments about the knowledge of a baby, child, and adult. In two further experiments, children reported that an infant, child, or adult observer would be able to identify an object from an identifiable or nondescript part of the object. (BC)