Rhythm perception helps young infants find structure in both speech and music. However, it remains unknown whether categorical perception of suprasegmental linguistic rhythm signaled by a co-variation of multiple acoustic cues can be modulated by prior between- (music) and within-domain (language) experience. Here we tested 6-month-old…

Experiences with books before age three predict children's motivation to read (Bus et al., 1995), and can support the development of vocabulary, communication, and symbolic skills (Scarborough, 2001). Sharing books with infants and toddlers is different than reading aloud to older children. For example, it is important to attend more closely to…

Can well-documented gender differences in evaluations of prosocial versus antisocial actions found in childhood and adulthood be traced to sex differences in basic sociomoral preferences in infancy? We provide an answer to this question by meta-analyzing sex differences in preference for prosocial over antisocial agents in a set of 53 samples of…

Recent work has investigated the origin of infant colour categories, showing pre-linguistic infants categorise colour even in the absence of colour words. These infant categories are similar but not identical to adult categories, giving rise to an important question about how infant colour perception changes with the learning of colour words. Here…

Mental rotation, the cognitive process of moving an object in mind to predict how it looks in a new orientation, is coupled to intelligence, learning, and educational achievement. On average, adolescent and adult males solve mental rotation tasks slightly better (i.e., faster and/or more accurate) than females. When such behavioral differences…

We present an exact replication of Experiment 2 from Kovács and Mehler's 2009 study, which showed that 7-month-old infants who are raised bilingually exhibit a cognitive advantage. In the experiment, a sound cue, following an AAB or ABB pattern, predicted the appearance of a visual stimulus on the screen. The stimulus appeared on one side of the…

Previous research suggests that exposure to accent variability can affect toddlers' familiar word recognition and word comprehension. The current preregistered study addressed the gap in knowledge on early language development in infants exposed to two dialects from birth and assessed the role of dialect similarity in infants' word recognition and…

Cross-linguistic studies describing the syllabic structures of babbling productions agree on the high prevalence of the CV structure, but few have addressed the other types of syllables emerging during this pre-linguistic stage. However, studying the evolution of the distribution of syllabic structures during babbling would make it possible to…

People with autism show identifiable impediments in three central aspects, namely communication, social interaction, and repetitive and restrictive behavior, which is called the triad of impairments. The communication observation of children with autism is relatively complex, so a specific procedure to identify their communication is required. A…

The way that mothers talk about the past (reminisce) with young children is linked to key memory, language, and socioemotional outcomes. The present research explored the role of a range of child, maternal, socioeconomic, and cultural factors that predict maternal reminiscing style, with a particular focus on maternal personality and child…

Behavioral flexibility--the ability to tailor motor actions to changing body-environment relations--is critical for functional movement. Navigating the everyday environment requires the ability to generate a wide repertoire of actions, select the appropriate action for the current situation, and implement it quickly and accurately. We used a new,…

Early social experiences, such as caregiver scaffolding, play a crucial but disputed role in the emergence of prosociality. A longitudinal experiment examined how explicit scaffolding--such as encouragement or praise--influences helping late in the first year, when helping emerges. Eighty-three infants (40 female, 6-9 months, 54% White, 17%…

For the current study, a multi-measure, micro-analytic approach was used to prospectively explore the role of preliminary symbolic play with single and multi-objects in language milestone development and vice versa. Fourteen infants followed up in monthly one hour sessions between the ages of 8 and 16 months. Their spontaneous play acts and vocal…

Several studies have previously investigated the effects of sticky mittens training on reaching and grasping development. However, recent critique casted doubts on the robustness of the motor effect of this training. The current study presents a pre-registered report that aimed to generalize these effects to Swedish infants. Three-month-old…

Scientists have long employed puppets in research with young children; this essay explores the validity of this practice. After considering what puppets are, their main types and history, I note the different ways puppets have been employed in research. One of these uses raises the issue of whether and when children apply their theory of mind to…