Three age groups were read the same short story. Their responses to interpretive questions were taken as texts and analyzed for age-distinctive word usage. Characteristic forms of talk were found, and age-specific patterns of interpretive thinking were derived from the forms. In general, 10 year olds saw a plot, adolescents a plight, and adults a…

Comments on the study reported by Feldman and others in this issue. Suggests that, in the study, subjects' word frequencies might be the result of subjects' familiarity with the words rather than the words' narrative role and that there is uncertainty in inferring interpretive patterns of subjects from word frequencies. (BC)

Replies to the commentary by Olson and Salter on an article by Feldman and others, both reported in this issue. Maintains that the evidence does not support Olson's and Salter's conjecture that the source of age-distinctive lexical differences reported in the Feldman study is a simple function of word frequency. (BC)

Examines two prominent positions in the epistemological foundations of psychology--Piaget's causal explanatory claims and Vygotsky's interpretive understanding; contends that they need to be placed in their wider philosophical contexts. Argues that the danger of causally explaining cultural practices through which human beings construct and…