The relation between maternal behavior and neurocognitive development is complex and may depend on the task context. We examined 5-month-old infant frontal electroencephalogram (EEG), maternal intrusiveness (MI) evaluated during two play contexts at 5 and 10 months, and a battery of executive function (EF) tasks completed at 48 months to evaluate…

One-hundred-six 5-year-olds' (M[subscript age] = 5;6; SD = 0.40) were trained with second-order false belief tasks in one of the following conditions: (a) "feedback with explanation"; (b) "feedback without explanation"; (c) "no feedback"; (d) "active control." The results showed that there were significant…

We investigated 4- and 5-year-olds' (N = 194) appreciation of the link between knowledge and ownership. Namely, we asked whether preschoolers appreciate the ways in which owners are typically knowledgeable about artifacts. Experiment 1 revealed that 4- and 5-year-olds view owners as better sources of knowledge about artifacts than those who simply…

Human communication relies on the ability to take into account the speaker's mental state to infer the intended meaning of an utterance in context. For example, a sentence such as 'Some of the animals are safe to pet' can be interpreted as giving rise to the inference 'Some and not all animals are safe to pet' when uttered by an expert. The same…

We examined the association between prenatal fish intake and child autism-related traits according to Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) and cognitive development scores in two US prospective pregnancy cohorts. In adjusted linear regression analyses, higher maternal fish intake in the second half of pregnancy was associated with increased child…

Within a bioecological model, research works over the past decades have shown the significant influence of family micro systemic variables on child development. This study is aimed to test the factorial structure of the Haezi-Etxadi Family Assessment Scale (HEFAS-6), designed to detect protective family factors for language and reading development…

Although a growing number of studies indicate that simple strategies, intuitions, or cognitive shortcuts called heuristics can persistently interfere with scientific reasoning in physics and chemistry, the persistence of heuristics related to learning biology is less known. In this study, we investigate the persistence of the "moving things…

A growing body of research has found a relationship between parenting and the development of executive function in young children; however, fewer studies have examined how parenting is related specifically to the development of working memory. Using data from the Family Life Project, this study examined whether attention was a pathway through…

Theory of mind (ToM) is crucial for social interactions. Previous research has indicated that deaf and hard-of-hearing children born into hearing families (DoH) are at risk of delayed ToM development. However, it is unclear whether this is the case for DoH children who receive cochlear implants (CIs) before and around the second year of life. The…

Emotion development research centrally concerns capacities to produce emotions and to think about them. We distinguish these enterprises and consider a novel account of how they might be related. On one recent account, the capacity to have emotions of various kinds comes by way of the acquisition of emotion concepts. This account relies on a…

The basolateral complex of amygdala (BLA) processes emotionally arousing aversive and rewarding experiences. The BLA is critical for acquisition and storage of threat-based memories and the modulation of the consolidation of arousing explicit memories, that is, the memories that are encoded and stored by the medial temporal lobe. In addition, in…

In four experiments, we investigate how the ability to detect irrelevant explanations develops. In Experiments 1 and 2, 4- to 8-year-olds and adults rated different types of explanations about "what makes cars go" individually, in the absence of a direct contrast. Each explanation was true and relevant (e.g., "Cars have engines that…

As a contribution to the discussion on the assessment of informal inferential reasoning (IIR) and the transition from this to formal inferential reasoning (FIR), we present a review of research on how these two types of inferential reasoning have been conceptualized and assessed. Based on our review, we discuss the need to redefine the conceptions…

Writing skills are one of the determining factors for law students' success, but it is their biggest problem. This problem stems from the lack of grammar mastery and learning barriers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, this study aims to describe cognitive strategies for law students in writing opinion texts during the COVID-19 pandemic and…

Poor maternal mental health negatively impacts cognitive development from infancy to childhood, affecting both behavior and brain architecture. In a non-western context (Thimphu, Bhutan), we demonstrate that culturally-moderated factors such as family, community social support, and enrichment may buffer and scaffold the development of infant…