Four studies involving 160 children of 4-11 years and 14 adults focused on the development of beliefs about selective attention. Children's beliefs about attention appeared to change greatly during the age range studied. Predictions of successful comprehension of unattended stories declined sharply between ages 4 and 6. (RJC)

Infants of 14 months of age demonstrated significantly improved understanding of containment as a result of a training intervention in which they played with cans and tubes in their homes for a month. After training, their test scores were similar to those of untrained 20-month-old children. (RH)

Two experiments investigated the role of continuity cues in infants' perception of launching events as causal. Results indicated that younger subjects' perceptions of the particular object may influence perception of causality and that infants' use of cues to causality changes with age. (WP)

Deceptive box experiments showed that when children see the expected contents before the boxes are changed, it is easier to report their own and a puppet's initial true belief, but also a puppet's current false belief. Results support the "reality masking hypothesis," that facilitation is due to the belief option being linked with a…

Three experiments involving children and adults investigated age differences in repetition priming effects as contrasted with explicit recall and recognition. Findings showed that recall increased with age, but priming effects did not differ with age. Results suggest that implicit memory is insensitive to age differences and to encoding and delay…

In their answers to questions about a novel event, children were as accurate as adults when responding to open-ended questions, and four year olds were more likely than six and eight year olds and adults to change responses to yes-no questions. Adults speculated more frequently than did children when they answered specific questions. (BC)

Studied time estimation for a button-pressing response in 3- and 5.5-year-olds under "minimal,""temporal," and "force" instructions. Found that force--but not temporal--instructions improved 3-year-olds' timing accuracy. When instructed to press harder, they pressed longer. Older children were more accurate with…

Four experiments examined children's understanding of the inverse relationship between the number of parts into which a quantity is divided and the size of each part. Found that children tended to judge that bigger shares resulted from sharing with more recipients. Seven-year olds performed correctly on a simplified equal-sharing task. Five-year…

Two studies explored tendency of adults and first-, second-, and fourth-graders to explain properties of living/nonliving natural kinds in teleological terms. Findings indicated that children were more likely than adults to broadly explain properties in teleological terms. The kinds of functions they endorsed varied with age. Experimental…

Three experiments tested a model identifying object labels as discrete attributes of the object in which the relative weight of the label decreases with children's age. Results indicated that labels contribute to similarity judgment in a quantifiable manner, labels' weight decreased with age, and effects of labels were likely to stem from the…

Examined source monitoring and false memories in 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds related to their memory of information presented by videotape and/or audiotape. Found that certainty rating revealed deficits in children's understanding of when they had erred on source questions and when they had made false alarms. Inhibitory ability accounted for unique…

Infants were followed longitudinally to document the relationship between docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) levels and the development of attention. Erythrocyte (red-blood cell; RBC) phospholipid DHA (percentage of total fatty acids) was measured from infants and mothers at delivery. Infants were assessed in infant-control habituation at 4, 6, and 8…

Across two studies, a wide age range of participants was interviewed about the nature of death. All participants were living in rural Madagascar in a community where ancestral beliefs and practices are widespread. In Study 1, children (8-17 years) and adults (19-71 years) were asked whether bodily and mental processes continue after death. The…

Behavioral problems are frequent among post-institutionalized Eastern European adoptees. However, risk factors related to outcomes have not been fully delineated. We evaluated 50 Eastern European adoptees, age 8-10 years, with their adoptive families for more than five years. Cognitive and behavioral outcomes and parenting stress were evaluated in…

Children's understanding of the cardinal significance of counting is often assessed by the "give x" task, in which they are categorized as "counters" or "grabbers". Previous research indicates a sudden stage-like shift, implying insight into a principle. Employing a microgenetic approach, the present study was…