This study explores how 7-month-old infants categorize graphical images varying in basic perceptual features by using a fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS) task. Most participants were Caucasian and their parents had a higher education, but the family's socioeconomic background was mixed. Experiment 1 (N = 23) tested brain responses to…

In the present research, we provide empirical evidence for the process of symbolic integration of number associations, focusing on the development of simple addition (e.g., 5 + 3 = 8), subtraction (e.g., 5 - 3 = 2), and multiplication (e.g., 5 × 3 = 15). Canadian children were assessed twice, in Grade 2 and Grade 3 (N = 244; 55% girls). All…

Despite an increasing number of studies demonstrating that young children selectively learn from others, and a few studies of children's selective teaching, the evidence almost exclusively comes from Western cultures, and cross-cultural comparison in this line of work is very rare. In the present research, we investigated Japanese and German…

In the context of joint decision-making, we investigated whether preschoolers alter the informativeness of their justifications depending on the common ground that they share with their partner. Pairs of 3- and 5-year-olds (N = 146) were introduced to a novel animal with unique characteristics (e.g., eating rocks). In the common ground condition,…

Extensive exposure to representational media is common for infants in Western culture, and previous research has shown that soon after their 1st birthday, infants can acquire and extend new information from pictures to real objects. Here we explore the extent to which lack of exposure to pictures during infancy affects children's learning from…

This article reports on an individual differences study that investigated the role of implicit statistical learning in the acquisition of syntax in children. One hundred children ages 4 years 5 months through 6 years 11 months completed a test of implicit statistical learning, a test of explicit declarative learning, and standardized tests of…

The present study aimed at modeling individual differences in a verbal learning task by means of a latent structured growth curve approach based on an exponential function that yielded 3 parameters: initial recall, learning rate, and asymptotic performance. Three cognitive variables--speed of information processing, verbal knowledge, working…

When teaching children part terms, adults frequently outline the relevant part rather than simply point. This pragmatic information very likely helps children interpret the label correctly. But the importance of gestures may not negate the need for default lexical biases such as the whole object assumption and mutual exclusivity. On this view,…

We investigated the reading and spelling development of 140 Persian children attending Grades 1-4 in Iran. Persian has very consistent letter-sound correspondences, but it varies in transparency because 3 of its 6 vowel phonemes are not marked with letters. Persian also varies in spelling consistency because 6 phonemes have more than one…

This study investigated differences in attention and learning among Guatemalan Mayan and European American children, ages 5-11 years, who were present but not addressed while their sibling was shown how to construct a novel toy. Each child waited with a distracter toy for her or his turn to make a different toy. Nonaddressed children from Mayan…