Children sometimes make "scale errors," attempting to interact with tiny object replicas as though they were full size. Here, we demonstrate that instrumental tools provide special insight into the origins of scale errors and, moreover, into the broader nature of children's purpose-guided reasoning and behavior with objects. In Study 1, 1.5- to…

Investigated two developmental implications: (1) that foci for color categories become established and stabilized earlier than boundaries, and (2) that focal judgments are always more stable than boundary judgments. Subjects were 20 kindergarteners, 40 third graders and 40 adults. (Author/SDH)

An investigation of memory development using nonmetric multidimensional scaling. Judgments of similarities between complex objects were obtained from 5-year-olds and adults under two conditions: (1) when objects were simultaneously present at the time of comparison, and (2) when the objects were not simultaneously present and had to be compared on…

This study attempted to discover the characteristics of the developmental process whereby children follow a sequential pattern in their understanding of social relationships. A questionnaire was administered describing several simple dyadic situations in terms of one person helping or hurting another. The respondents were to indicate whether the…

Study of perceptual exploration was undertaken to see to what extent school experience would produce left-right patterns on several kinds of figures which have strong Gestalt properties. (Author)

Attempts to clarify the basis for the unusual responses to observed movement by 7-year-old children, as compared to adults, discovered by Olum. Subjects were 40 first and third graders. Results indicate that these responses are genuine and that they go through a developmental evolution. (SDH)

Study deals with a comparative developmental analysis of performances on the same task by four age groups. (MB)

Two major trends in the development of natural language concepts were found in the present study: (1) there was a clear indication that such concepts exist in a relatively fragmented form in young children; (2) young children showed a strong dependence on perceptual attributes in their definitions of concepts. (Author/CB)

Extends William James' classification of phenomenalistic reality (PR) and analyzes PR using empirical data available in developmental psychology; focuses on the relation of PR to a human subject; to rational constructions; and to the idea of truth. Concludes that the development of phenomenalistic reality is qualitatively different from the…

Students in grades K, 1, 3, and 5 were administered the Rod and Frame Test (RFT), the Matching Familiar Figures (MFF) Test, and the Piagetian tasks of Discontinuous Quantity, Class Inclusion, Multiplication of Classes, and Multiplication of Relations. Cross-sectional trends were found in all tasks with older children being less impulsive, more…

This document is an English-language abstract (approximately 1,500 words) of a three-part volume on the psychology of child personality development. In part one, the author shows that psychology is one of the most important scientific disciplines on which education is based, particularly because of its contribution to the scientific planning of…

Revises an earlier experiment that revealed age-related increases in sensitivity to rhythmic information when judging the difference between a theme and selected pitch and rhythm variations. Tested the possibility that the developmental differences found earlier were due to characteristics of the test melody. Results supported the earlier study.…

This study attempts to reinforce developmental theory concerning spatial Comprehension by building on the qualitative observations of art educators of the past, and by strengthening the empirical basis of contemporary investigations into the relationship between pictorial representations, intellectual maturity, and environmental stimulation.…