Three experiments examined whether 4- and 5-year-olds can explicitly revise uncertain beliefs in light of disconfirming evidence. We considered 2 factors that might influence belief revision: (a) the type and variability of evidence provided, and (b) whether children generated an explanation of their initial hypothesis. When provided with limited…

Young children often provide ambiguous referential statements. Thus, the ability to identify when miscommunication has occurred and subsequently repair messages is an essential component of communicative development. The present study examined the impact of listener feedback and children's executive functioning in influencing children's ability to…

From early in development, segmenting events unfolding in the world in meaningful ways renders input more manageable and facilitates interpretation and prediction. Yet, little is known about how children process action structure in events composed of multiple coarse-grained actions. More importantly, little is known about the time course of action…

Contrast information could be useful for verb learning, but few studies have examined children's ability to use this type of information. Contrast may be useful when children are told explicitly that different verbs apply, or when they hear two different verbs in a single context. Three studies examine children's attention to different types of…

The abilities of past and future episodic thinking develop hand in hand across the preschool years and are intimately connected in adults. Little is known, however, about the development of episodic thinking in middle childhood and how it is influenced by sociocultural factors. In the present study, one hundred sixty-seven 7- to 10-year-old…

Pragmatic differentiation in bilinguals is the ability to use two languages appropriately with different speakers. Although some sensitivity emerges by 2 years, the effects of context on these skills and their relation to other developing metacognitive capacities have not been examined. The current study compared the language use of 28 bilingual…

We longitudinally investigated the development of endogenous control of attention in 2 types of tasks that involve competition for attentional focus at 7, 9, and 31 months of age. At all 3 sessions, children participated in a multiple object free play task and a distractibility task. The results revealed both developmental differences and…