Existing evidence suggests that children, when they first pass standard theory-of-mind tasks, still fail to understand the essential aspectuality of beliefs and other propositional attitudes: such attitudes refer to objects only under specific aspects. Oedipus, for example, believes Yocaste (his mother) is beautiful, but this does not imply that…

D. R. Proffitt and colleagues (e. g., D. R. Proffitt, J. Stefanucci, T. Banton, & W. Epstein, 2003) have suggested that objects appear farther away if more effort is required to act upon them (e.g., by having to throw a ball). The authors attempted to replicate several findings supporting this view but found no effort-related effects in a variety…

Discusses experiments in different school systems in New York and Massachusetts that incorporate Herman T. Epstein's theory of brain development. Many of the programs are aimed at helping teachers identify student cognitive levels and adopt techniques for reaching children at different levels. (WD)

Cognitive acceleration programmes, started in the early 1980s, have now been run in many hundreds of schools in many parts of the world. One important feature of these programmes is that their effects have been evaluated by following up participant students for some years after the intervention. This has provided extensive experience in the…

USING THREE FIFTH-GRADE CLASSES IN RACINE, WISCONSIN, AS AN EXPERIMENTAL GROUP AND THREE FIFTH-GRADE CLASSES AS A CONTROL GROUP, CONFORMITY TO GROUP PRESSURE WAS COMPARED FOR 76 SUBJECTS RECEIVING A FOUR-WEEK PROGRAM OF CREATIVITY TRAINING AND FOR 88 MATCHED CONTROLS. EFFECT OF CREATIVITY TRAINING ON CONFORMITY WAS QUITE SPECIFIC, WITH CONFORMITY…

The mathematical solution to a Piagetian experiment involving topological concepts reported in a recent book is labeled as a sham. The correct solution is given and discussed. (MP)

This article describes how children build increasingly abstract knowledge of linear measurement, emphasizing ways they relate space and number. Assessments indicate children struggle to understand measurement, especially concepts related to complex paths as in perimeter tasks. This article draws on developmental accounts of children's knowledge of…

Two teaching experiments were conducted relating to the relative effectiveness of anthropological films versus reading of literature as means of conveying anthropological information to college students and of influencing their attitudes toward other societies. In one, a student group viewed films about the Netsilik Indians, one read literature,…

The APPROACH (A Procedure for Patterning Responses of Adults and Children) technique was used to code observations of behavior and setting in this ecological study of adult-child cognitive communication patterns. The subjects observed were 32 children who proportionately represented each of four age groups (1 year, 2 years, 3 years, and 4 years)…

Article describes an experiment to deterimine how to promote cognitive growth in terms of classroom mathematics learning. (MM)

This document is an English-language abstract (approximately 1,500 words) of a book in which the author sums up her research on the problem of training and transfering various types of mental activity. The second part of the book deals with one of the most important problems of mental development, that of the evidences and conditions of…