Examined a theoretical interpretation of recall as a system in which the influences of memory strength, episodic activation, and output interference must be balanced to maximize recall. Children never recalled stronger words before weaker words. As learning progressed, a weaker-stronger-weaker ordering of recalled words emerged. (BC)

Two studies examined the positivity bias in children of different ages. Findings indicated that children from grade two and up selected the correct cause(s) when the effect covaried with only one cause, but only at a later age when covariation with two causes was presented. Ability estimations and expectation of success were more positive in…

Investigated relationship between young children's ability to predict another observer's interpretation of an ambiguous picture and to identify the source of a misinterpretation after it had occurred. Found that six-year-olds were more likely than four- and five-year-olds to predict that a puppet would misinterpret the target-restricted view and…

Examined analog number representations in 5- to 7- year-olds. Found that subjects accurately estimated rapidly presented groups of 5 to 11 items. Children's data were qualitatively and to some degree quantitatively similar to adult data, with one exception. The ratio of the standard deviation of estimates to mean estimates decreased with age.…

Three studies explored 2- to 4-year-olds' ability to categorize objects based on novel underlying causal power. Children saw that a "blicket" would set off a machine and participated in categorization, induction, and association tasks. Results demonstrated that even 2-year-olds easily learn about an object's new causal power and…

Examined causal status effect (weighing cause features more than effect features in categorization). Presented adults and 7- to 9-year-olds animal descriptions wherein one feature caused two others. Asked which transfer item was more likely an example of novel animal. Found that both groups preferred an animal with a cause and an effect feature…

Two studies compared how preschoolers through fifth graders and adults reasoned about psychogenic bodily reactions such as stress-induced headaches. Results supported a developmental path: younger children view psychogenic bodily responses as wholly physical, but with age, view them as both physical and psychological. (Author/KB)

Two experiments explored the existence and the development of relations between action representations and object representations. A priming paradigm was used in which participants viewed an action pantomime followed by the picture of a tool, the tool being either associated or unassociated with the preceding action. Overall, we observed that the…

This study investigates how/whether the emergence and function of Turkish Tense Aspect Modality (TAM) markers that are used in narratives by children from 3 to 9 plus 13-year-olds show differences relative to the age of the narrator both quantitatively and qualitatively. The data were collected, by using Mayer's (1969) wordless picture book…

Educators need accurate assessments of preschool cognitive growth to guide curriculum design, evaluation, and timely modification of their instructional programs. But available tests do not provide content breadth or growth sensitivity over brief intervals. This article details evidence for a multiform, multiscale test criterion-referenced to…

Examined how college-age adults and 8-, 11-, and 13-year-olds retrieve semantic information from long-term memory. Closely comparable results were obtained across ages. This developmental similarity is discussed in relation to developmental differences in the use of semantic information in other cognitive tasks. (JMB)

Few studies of person perception have examined the development of human nature concepts, i.e., the understanding of what it means to be human. In an attempt to explore the development of what being human means within the framework of cognitive development theory, 55 boys and 60 girls in kindergarten, fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade were given a…

The Snijders-Oomen Nonverbal Intelligence Test (SON) was administered to 251 deaf children (6-15 years old) and 101 hearing children (10-12 years old) in Israel. The SON was judged appropriate for measuring cognitive functioning in the deaf because it requires no verbal instructions or responses and includes a measure of abstract thinking ability.…

Distinguishing two forms of inference (additive and general vicariance), this paper describes a procedure for assessing class vicariance that attempts to control potentially confounding effects of verbal comprehension. The term "class vicariance" refers to the inference that a class remains invariant under arbitrary dichotomous…

Pascual-Leone's neo-Piagetian theory of development is used to predict the pre- and postinstruction distributions of scores on a subject-controlled digit placement task as a function of three parameters dealing with mental strategy and capacity. (Author/ED)