It has been suggested that due to functional similarity, sortal object individuation might be a primordial form of psychological essentialism. For example, the relative independence of identity judgment from perceived surface features is a characteristic of essentialist reasoning. Also, infants engaging in sortal object individuation pay more…

This groundbreaking book looks at the development of mathematical thinking in infants and toddlers, with an emphasis on the earliest stage, from zero to three, when mathematical thinking and problem solving first emerge as natural instincts. The text explores the four precursor math concepts--attribute, comparison, change, and pattern--with an…

This research tests whether analogical learning is present before language comprehension. Three-month-old infants were habituated to a series of analogous pairs, instantiating either the "same" relation (e.g., AA, BB, etc.) or the "different" relation (e.g., AB, CD, etc.), and then tested with further exemplars of the…

A rich tradition in developmental psychology explores physical reasoning in infancy. However, no research to date has investigated whether infants can reason about physical objects that behave probabilistically, rather than deterministically. Physical events are often quite variable, in that similar-looking objects can be placed in similar…

Two experiments were conducted to determine if infants attribute false beliefs to others when tested with the violation-of-expectancy procedure. In Experiment 1, the false-belief task was administered to 14- and 18-month-old infants. The procedure was identical to the one used by Onishi and Baillargeon (2005), except that two transparent boxes…

Recent studies have documented an evolutionarily primitive, early emerging cognitive system for the mental representation of numerical quantity (the analog magnitude system). Studies with nonhuman primates, human infants, and preschoolers have shown this system to support computations of numerical ordering, addition, and subtraction involving…

According to a recent account of infants' acquisition of their physical knowledge, the incremental-knowledge account, infants form distinct event categories, such as occlusion, containment, support, and collision events. In each category, infants identify one or more vectors which correspond to distinct problems that must be solved. For each…

Human infants are predisposed to organize their experience in terms of certain concepts (natural) and not others (unnatural). Three formal, necessary conditions on the naturalness of concepts are offered. The conditions attempt to link the problem of naturalness to principled distinctions between sense vs nonsense, simplicity vs complexity, and…

A study investigated developments in reasoning and memory as reflected by the discovery strategies of children taking part in a manipulative categorization and recall task. A total of 40 children (8 each of 18, 24, 30, 36, and 42 months of age) participated. Stimulus materials consisting of blocks, toy plates, discs, and plastic trees were…

Interest in U-shaped development has itself undergone a U-shaped progression. Twenty-five years ago, interest in U-shaped development was high. This interest was evident at a 1978 conference in Tel Aviv on "U-shaped Behavioral Growth" that resulted in the publication of a book of the same title 4 years later (Strauss, 1982). The breadth…

The purpose of this research is to show that the logical formula for equivalence, (A=A; but is not A'), originates in the early manual actions of the young child. Having two hands that are bilaterally opposed and initially function in bilaterally symmetrical action might serve to structure the form of early sensori-motor experiences and this…

In four parts, this discussion describes characteristics of the thought of infants, preschool children, primary school students, and adolescents. Topics briefly addressed in part I, on the thought processes/capabilities of babies, concern sensorimotor thought without abstraction, the importance of physical exploration, the development of…

Papers presented at a Loyola University Symposium, part of a series on human growth and development, are published in this volume. The papers are: (1) "Some Aspects of Operations," by Jean Piaget; (2) "Operational Thought and Social Adaptation," by Peter H. Wolff; (3) "Fundamental Education," by Rene A. Spitz; (4)…

The developmental increase in the ability to solve problems is a puzzle. Does it come from basic changes in mental skills, or is it a matter of practice? This book from the Developing Child series synthesizes recent research examining children's problem-solving skills development. Chapter 1 presents the major themes: (1) there is increasing…