Two studies explored the relation of task understanding to performance in the Wason selection tasks, in which subjects successfully solve tasks involving either social exchange situations or cheating detection content and perspective. Findings indicate that previous results (Gigerenzer and Hug, 1992) could be attributed to three general properties…

Five experiments demonstrated that 6.5-month-olds perseverated in a violation-of-expectation task to examine reasoning about width information in containment events. After watching a familiarization event in which a ball was lowered into a wide container, infants failed to detect the violation when the same ball was lowered into a container half…

Two experiments yield data suggesting that the structure of children's concept of artifact function changes profoundly between age 5 and 7, with striking effects on problem-solving performance. This effect is not caused by differences in children's knowledge about the typical use of particular tools, but rather, is mediated by the structure of the…

Two experiments related structure of a task to underlying cognitive mechanisms. Found that 3-year olds were no better at predicting behavior from partially true beliefs than from entirely false beliefs. Three- and 4-year olds, and autistic children had distinct performance profiles across tasks. Concluded that conceptual foundations for a…