Executive function mechanisms underpinning language-related effects on theory of mind understanding were examined in a sample of 165 preschoolers. Verbal labels were manipulated to identify relevant perspectives on an explicit false belief task. In Experiment 1 with 4-year-olds (N = 74), false belief reasoning was superior in the fully and…

Young children often exhibit flexible behaviors relying on different kinds of information in different situations. This flexibility has been traditionally attributed to conceptual knowledge. Reported research demonstrates that flexibility can be acquired implicitly and it does not require conceptual knowledge. In Experiment 1, 4- to 5-year-olds…

Found that preschool children can form abstract concepts of left and right which are not bound to the specific training context: children were able to generalize to new figures and to new spatial locations. The nature of the preschool child's left-right judgments is discussed. (Author/RH)

Young children's comprehension and overdiscrimination of natural language concepts were examined by asking 2- and 4-year-old children to select pictorial instances of five concrete semantic concepts. Results suggest that young children initially tend to use concept labels in a very restricted manner. (JMB)

Children (N=45), who had failed to attain criterion on three tests of linear order, were trained under one of three conditions: reciprocity, reversibility, and discrimination. Under all three conditions children demonstrated learning during training and significant specific transfer effects; reversibility training led to generalized transfer to…

Degree of organization in presenting stimuli, and training through modeling versus guided practice, were studied on a dial-reading concept using 144 third or fifth graders. (ST)

An evaluation of selective generalization of habituation on the basis of meaningful categories of stimuli. Also explored are the sex differences in conceptual generalization of habituation. Subjects were 36 toddlers with a mean age of 40 months. (SDH)

Evaluates some possible reasons for the occurrence and eventual correction of children's naming errors in an experiment in which two-, four-, and six-year-olds learned two artificial object names in succession. (HOD)

Attaining and generalizing a new concept were studied in Mexican- and Anglo-American fifth graders. Both modeling and repetition improved performance. (Authors/MB)