Counterfactual emotions such as regret may aid future decision-making by encouraging people to focus on controllable features of personal past events. However, it remains unclear when children begin to preferentially focus on controllable features of such events. Across two studies, Australian 4-9-year-olds (N = 336, 168 females; data collected…

Cognitive abilities are essential to children's overall growth; thus, the implementation of early and effective training interventions is a major challenge for developmental psychologists and teachers. This study explores whether an intervention simultaneously operating on fluid reasoning (FR), visuospatial, narrative, and motor abilities could…

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…

This microgenetic study examined social influences on children's development of analogical reasoning during peer-led small-group discussions of stories about controversial issues. A total of 277 analogies were identified among 7,215 child turns for speaking during 54 discussions from 18 discussion groups in 6 fourth-grade classrooms (N = 120; age…

On belief-desire reasoning tasks, children first pass tasks involving true belief before those involving false belief, and tasks involving positive desire before those involving negative desire. The current study examined belief-desire reasoning in participants old enough to pass all such tasks. Eighty-three 6- to 11-year-olds and 20 adult…

The proposed conceptualization of logical competence has 3 dimensions; principles, content, and complexity. (SB)

Assessed 3- to 7-year-old children's sensitivity to logical necessity by contrasting performance in insufficient and sufficient information conditions. A search task used in Experiments 1 and 2 allowed children to search for additional information in insufficient conditions. A judgement condition used in Experiment 2 required a "can't tell"…

Data representing two styples of approach to the logical abilities of young children are analyzed. The result of this analysis is contrary to popular interpretations of Piaget's views concerning the logical abilities of young children. (ST)

In Study 1, 10-, 13-, and 16-year-olds were assigned to conditions in which they were instructed to think logically and provided alternative antecedents to the consequents of conditional statements. Providing alternatives improved reasoning on two uncertain logical forms, but decreased logical responding on two certain forms; logic instructions…

Learning of class inclusion by 5-year-olds in response to empirical and logical explanations of an adult's answers was examined. Contrary to the view that young children possess an empirical bias, 5-year-olds learned more, and continued learning for longer, when given logical explanations of correct answers than when given empirical explanations.…

Investigates logical and perceptual determinants of social-cognitive development by examining children's use of consensus information for causal attribution. Results verify the importance of perceptual processes, demonstrating that children can use consensus for person attribution earlier in development than they can for stimulus attribution.…

A group of 60 children from grades K, 1, 3, 4, and 8 were assessed via a battery of Piagetian tasks to determine their stages of cognitive development. They were then asked to interpret a number of metaphors ranging in frequency of occurrence in adult speech from common to rare. (Author/JMB)

This study suggests that the verbal facilitation effect is due to variations in verbal cues rather than to differences in pictorial cues. (ST)

Assesses three sets of Piagetian exclusion operations (of varying the independent variables, of holding the independent variable constant, and tautology) and of levels of thought (concrete through formal) in 33 fifth graders, 27 sixth graders, and 31 seventh graders. (HOD)

Three paper-and-pencil formal operations tests were administered to groups of eighth graders and adults. These measures provided scores that indicated each subject's level of reasoning for three second-order operations: combinations, proportionality, and propositional logic. (JMB)