In 3 studies (N = 188) we tested the hypothesis that children use a perceptual access approach to reason about mental states before they understand beliefs. The perceptual access hypothesis predicts a U-shaped developmental pattern of performance in true belief tasks, in which 3-year-olds who reason about reality should succeed, 4- to 5-year-olds…

Five experiments involving children of 4-11 years investigated partonomic knowledge and its relation to the use of taxonomic organization. Results suggest that children are sensitive to parts of common objects and appear to be able to use this sensitivity to group objects in abstract, function-based, superordinate categories. (RJC)

Second and third graders and fifth and sixth graders were tested in a very large, unfamiliar environment to determine the relation of their knowledge of an abstract reference frame to performance on a spatial inference task. (HOD)

Reports the results of cognitive test performance and early childhood activities in individuals with congenital adrenal hyperplasia, an autosomal recessive disorder associated with elevated prenatal adrenal androgen levels, demonstrating the effects of early exposure to excess androgenizing hormones on sexually dimorphic cognitive functioning.…

Tested three competing structural equation models concerning auditory inspection time (AIT) and cognitive ability. Found that auditory inspection times near age 11 correlate most strongly with later high IQ. (ET)