The effects of rewards on executive function (EF) reflect bidirectional interactions among motivational and executive systems that vary with age and temperament. However, methodological limitations hinder understanding of the precise influences of incentives on early EF, including the role of reward sensitivity. In this within-subjects study,…

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…

This study provides experimental evidence for automatic, relationship-specific social information processing in 13-year-old adolescents. Photographs of participants' liked, disliked, and unknown peers were used as primes in an affective priming task with happy and angry facial expression probes and in a hypothetical vignette task. For the…

Differences in the rates of visual information-processing in 8- and 10-year-old reflective and impulsive children were measured. (JMB)

This study examined the effect of exemplar typicality on reaction time and accuracy of categorization. High-functioning children (age 9-12), adolescents (age 13-16), and adults with autism (age 17-48) and matched controls were tested in a category verification procedure. All groups showed improved processing throughout the lifespan for typical and…

Examined developmental change and stability of visual expectation and reaction times among 5-, 7-, and 12-month-old term and preterm infants. Found that reaction times declined with age while anticipations increased. Infants with faster reaction times were more likely to anticipate upcoming events; this effect disappeared when time between stimuli…

Race and socioeconomic status (SES) moderated the link between children's sleep and cognitive functioning. One hundred and sixty-six 8- to 9-year-old African and European American children varying in SES participated. Sleep measures were actigraphy, sleep diaries, and self-report; cognitive measures were from the Woodcock-Johnson III and reaction…

A study to determine whether the differential development of conceptual tempo can predict preferences. Conceptual tempo predicted preferences in color-form sorting among 67 children ranging in age from 44 to 65 months. (WY)

Developmental changes in 5- to 7-year-old children's mental representation of addition and subtraction events were examined by means of the response times required to answer more or less questions. (Author/JMB)

Examines Kail's argument that similarity in developmental speed-of-processing curves for name retrieval and mental rotation indicates that performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks is constrained by growth of a central limiting mechanism. Results suggest that operation of this mechanism is neither sufficient nor necessary to generate the…

This is a developmental study of the effects, and role, of imagery in retrieving information from long-term memory. In two blocks of trails, first graders, fourth graders and adults determined whether or not various animals are characterized by various properties, first upon consultation of a visual image and then without imagery. (Author/SB)

To characterize cognitive maturation through adolescence, processing speed, voluntary response suppression, and spatial working memory were measured in 8- to 30-year-old (N=245) healthy participants using oculomotor tasks. Development progressed with a steep initial improvement in performance followed by stabilization in adolescence. Adult-level…

Investigates performance of 8, 10, 12 year olds and adults on cognitive tasks in terms of several processing-speed measures, each of which may change independently with age. Results underscore the complexity of developmental change in processing efficiency. (Author/RH)

Second-grade children, third-grade children, and adults judged whether pictures were members of a positive or negative memory set while trying to ignore irrelevant words printed inside the pictures. (JMB)