Habituation of looking time has become the standard method for studying cognitive processes in infancy. This method has a long history and derives from the study of memory and habituation itself. Often, however, it is not clear how researchers make decisions about how to implement habituation as a tool to study processes such as categorization,…

Two studies examined language and understanding of scale models. First, children (N = 16; ages 2;4 to 3;5) received either the "standard" DeLoache model task or a "naming" version (in which children are asked to name the hiding location before retrieving a hidden object). Language ability positively correlated with performance…

Three experiments investigated 14-, 18-, and 24- month-old infants' understanding of visual perception. Infants viewed films in which a protagonist was either able to view the location of a hidden object (Visual Access condition) or was blindfolded when the object location was revealed (No Visual Access condition). When requested to find the…

An important characteristic of mature spatial cognition is the ability to encode spatial locations in terms of relations among landmarks as well as in terms of vectors that include distance and direction. In this study, we examined children's use of the relation "middle" to code the location of a hidden toy, using a procedure adapted…

Experience with a variety of symbolic artifacts has been proposed as a mechanism underlying symbolic development. In this study, the parents of 120 2-year-old children who participated in symbolic object retrieval tasks completed a questionnaire regarding their children's naturalistic experience with symbolic artifacts and activities. In separate…

Research on children's understanding of video has shown seeming contradictions. Fourteen-month-olds imitate actions seen on TV (Meltzoff, 1988) and 18-month-olds are reminded of an event by watching video (Sheffield & Hudson, 2003) but 24-month-olds fail at a video-mediated object-retrieval task requiring dual representational understanding…