In two experiments, 4- to 6-year-olds made judgments about the knowledge of a protagonist who had only partial information about an object they had full knowledge of. Found surprising discrepancy in performance in the two tasks, which appear superficially to require handling of same properties of the representational mind, indicating that current…

Summarizes William Perry's intellectual scheme and places it in the context of the 1990's. Perry's scheme of cognitive development, though more than thirty years old, is still being used by practitioners today to enhance practice in and out of the classroom. It laid a foundation for new research to extend, challenge, and build onto the scheme.…

Provides a theoretical account of children's success on theory of mind (ToM) tasks and the discrepancies found across different ToM tasks, and examines the role of indexical and symbolic referencing. Found that 4- to 6-year-olds succeeded more on tasks with a high ratio of indexical to symbolic references than on tasks with a high ratio of…

Responds to Noam's (PS 524 984) and Cicchetti's (PS 524 985) articles in this issue. Suggests that researchers should turn to the coactions of the internal and the external constraints on development that codetermine performance. States the position that cognitive developmental theory, when sensitized to intra- and interindividual differences,…

Tested children at 3 to 4 years of age, and again 13 months later, on false-belief tasks and on four tests of executive function, or processes underlying goal-directed behavior. Results suggest that young children's understanding of mind is grounded in their growing competence in strategic planning and mental flexibility. (Author/BC)

Six- to 14-year olds added "winning" beads to an urn of "losing" beads in order to generate equal probabilities of choosing a winning bead from each of two urns. Found that 13-year olds integrated the two dimensions (winning and losing beads), the youngest children relied on one dimension, and 9- to 10-year olds partly combined…

Replies to commentaries by Mandler (1988) and Rochat and Striano (1988), focusing on Mandler's comments. Maintains that their disagreements are the result of deep meta-theoretical differences regarding a representational theory of mind rather than misrepresentations of fact. Discusses how their meta-theoretical differences result in several basic…

Maintains that the strengths of Cole's work include its historical perspective for the new discipline of cultural psychology and its integration of concepts from a variety of traditions. Argues that the book's problematic areas include its neglect of socioemotional variables and its assumption of culture as a caring medium for human development.…

Two studies examined the hypothesis that children rely on name representations, often indexed by shape, in their semantic representations. Results suggest that, although shape plays an important role in children's early naming, other factors are also important, including the mental state of the picture's creator (whether intentional or not).…

Four studies replicated Lillard's paradigm for studying preschoolers' understanding of pretense. Results indicated that decreasing contradictory information increased the incidence of correct judgments, suggesting an implicitly representational understanding of pretense. Findings challenge Lillard's conceptual analysis of pretense and suggest that…

Six experiments examined young children's understanding that very recent past events determine the present. Found that 4-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, could locate a puppet they had observed being hidden either through a videotape or using a verbal analog of the task. When children observed 2 events in which they participated, only 5-year-olds…

Two studies investigated how 5- to 10-year-olds integrate perceptual causality with their knowledge of the underlying causal mechanism, using two devices in which a bell would ring when a ball was dropped in, either immediately or after a delay, depending on the mechanism inside. Findings suggest a link between temporal contiguity and causality in…

Distinguishes two types of executive theories: (1) emergence accounts; and (2) expression accounts. Asserts that the meta-analytic findings reported by Wellman, Cross, and Watson (2001) are fully consistent with emergence accounts of theory of mind and do not entirely rule out expression accounts. (Author/KB)

Examined in two studies referential understanding in 12- and 18-month-olds' responses to another's emotional outburst. Found that infants relied on the presence versus absence of referential cues to determine whether an emotional message should be linked with a salient object and they actively consulted referential cues to disambiguate the…

Maintains author's interpretation of 6-month-olds' behavior is consistent with task requirements in the 2000 study and previous work showing that infants use explanatory inferences to make sense of their world. Asserts that ability to understand that people communicate with persons but act on objects is precursor to infants' understanding at 9 to…