This study compared children (n=68) with either autism or general delay on false belief tasks and tasks to test for an understanding of interpretive diversity. Findings partially support the view that tasks of understanding interpretive diversity are more difficult than false belief tasks. Between-group differences in the consistency and quality…

Reports four experiments focusing on Piaget's claims that conservation and transitivity concepts are experienced as logically necessary truths. Two experiments examined feelings of certainty and necessity in college students presented with Piagetian tasks. Two other experiments extended these procedures to children and the issue of developmental…

This study investigated how 15 preadolescents and adolescents with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) performed on false belief tasks that included social inferencing of psychological states as well a logical inferencing of physical states. Unlike the control groups, the ASD group performed better on the social inferencing tasks and use of a prompt…

Two questionnaires were given to 38 students (16-18 year olds), in which they were asked to classify a list of different conceptual entities by several ontological features. The results suggest the form of a fundamental "ontological space" and locate some scientific concepts in this space. (Author)

The focus in the present study was on children's expectancies about how parents would respond to their children's genuine emotional-expressive displays, as sampled across seven different vignettes about parent-child interaction. The vignettes consisted of schematic cartoons and a verbal narrative. They contained "emotional displays" of…

Ellis' rational emotive theory is based on the assumption that people are born with a potential for both rational and irrational thinking. To analyze the relationship of irrational beliefs to sensitivity, depression, submission, anxiety, and neuroticism, an Irrationality Scale, containing eight irrational beliefs, was constructed from a review of…

This study examined the effectiveness of a social skills training program for five male adolescents with autism but normal IQ. In addition to teaching interactional and conversational skills, the program provided explicit instruction in social-cognitive principles of inferring the mental states of others. Significant changes in beliefs were found,…

Discussed are the roles played by anticipation, belief, and motivation in two young children's problem-solving activity. It is argued that a solver's beliefs and motivations are intimately related, and that the discussion of the two children's behaviors may have some generality. (Author/MNS)

The consistency, if any, with which force concepts are used by individual students in different, but closely related, contexts was investigated. A total of 534 university and high school students were tested to elicit their beliefs about the forces acting on various objects. Students' beliefs about the forces acting on objects at rest and in…

Reports on a study of 198 Canadian children, ages 4-8, on their understanding of the role of evidence on the formation of beliefs. Finds that younger children evaluate opinions based on their own beliefs about the situation; older children tend to ascribe knowledge to others on the basis of evidence available to those others. (CFR)

This project was designed to: (1) assess 7th-graders' metacognitive beliefs and processes and investigate how they affect problem-solving behaviors; and (2) explore the extent to which these students can be taught to be more strategic and aware of their own problem-solving behaviors. The primary assessment was conducted by analyzing video tapes of…