Suggests that Kuhn's study reported in this issue (PS 524 345) offers insight into how people make casual inferences, and raises important questions about these processes. (JW)

Judgments of similarity among mammals, including humans, were elicited from 7 and 10 year olds and adults. Results partially supported a consensus model of shared cultural knowledge. Patterns of deviation from the model appeared between children and adults because of the emergence of a primate category after age 10. (BC)

Adapted Keil's predictability method to examine adults' and preschoolers' conceptions of numbers, focusing on the ontological distinction between numbers and sets of objects. Found that children, like adults, attribute spatial-arrangement properties to collections much more than to numbers, although both are considered to have quantitative…

Examines the development of metaphor by using structure-mapping theory to make distinctions among kinds of metaphors. Proposes that children can understand metaphors based on shared object attributes before those based on shared relational structure. Results indicate a developmental shift toward focus on relational structure in metaphor…

A study used structure mapping theory to examine the claim that children can understand metaphors based on shared object attributes before understanding those based on shared relational structure. The three kinds of metaphor used in the study varied in whether the shared information forming the basis for the interpretation was attributional,…

Suggests study by Kuhn and others (PS 524 345) is too ambitious and that the processes described are not wholly representative of developmental stages. Argues the methodology of study was progressive problem solving, and that experimenter's questions resulted in contrived stages. (JW)

Two experiments compared 10-year-olds' and adults' ability to choose positive and negative diagnostic tests over positive and negative nondiagnostic tests. Findings indicated that both age groups were more likely to prefer positive diagnostic tests over positive nondiagnostic tests, although only adults showed a significant preference for negative…

The proposals concerning working memory outlined in this paper involve the architecture of working memory, the reasoning mechanisms that draw on it, and the ways in which working memory may develop with age. Ways of assessing task demands and children's working memory capacities are also considered. It is noted that there is long-standing evidence…

In this article, I explore the relation between the sociocultural and individual cognitive structuring as elementary school students, high school students, and adults play the strategic game of dominoes. I present data from a study in which players at each level were observed and video-recorded during domino tournament play. Findings reveal the…

Two experiments investigated kindergarten through fourth-graders' and adults' ability to evaluate the certainty of deductive inferences, inductive inferences, and guesses, and explain the origins of inferential knowledge. Findings indicated that children rated their own deductions as more certain than guesses, but when judging another person's…