Errors differ in degree of seriousness. We asked whether preschoolers would use the magnitude of an informant's errors to decide if that informant would be a good source of information later. Four- and 5-year-olds observed two informants incorrectly label familiar objects, but one informant's errors were closer to the correct answer than the…

Preschoolers made numerical comparisons between sets with varying degrees of shared surface similarity. When surface similarity was pitted against numerical equivalence (i.e., crossmapping), children made fewer number matches than when surface similarity was neutral (i.e, all sets contained the same objects). Only children who understood the…

We investigated whether the tendency to imitate or emulate is influenced by the availability of causal information, and the amount of information available in a display. Three and 5-year-old children were shown by either a live or video model how to obtain a reward from either a clear or an opaque puzzle box. Some of the actions in the sequence…

Two experiments compared preschoolers' awareness of knowledge transitions involving behavioral changes to those involving vocabulary or general knowledge changes. Found that children tended to report they had learned something new when novel information was behavioral (e.g., counting in Japanese) and tended to claim prior knowledge when the novel…

Preschool children experienced two special events and were asked a set of questions about one of the events on four different occasions over a seven-week period. Findings suggest that adult questioning enhances memory for specific recall, but does not enhance general memory performance. Results raise issues regarding how much children tailor their…

Developed the Gender Stereotyping Test, a sorting task that identifies the type of information used by young children to assign objects or qualities to each sex. Found that 4-year olds with knowledge of gender identity were more likely to gender type metaphorical, but not conventional, items than children without stable, constant gender identity.…