Abstract The relation between statistical learning and working memory in children with developmental dyslexia (DD) remains unclear. This study employed a distributional and a conditional statistical learning experiment and a working memory task to examine this relation in 651 Chinese 6- to 12-year-olds with and without DD (N[subscript DD] = 199,…

This study tested the prediction that, with age, children should rely less on familiarity and more on expertise in their selective social learning. Experiment 1 (N = 50) found that 5- to 6-year-olds copied the technique their mother used to extract a prize from a novel puzzle box, in preference to both a stranger and an established expert. This…

Four- to 6-year-old children (N = 131) heard religious or nonreligious stories and were questioned about their belief in the reality of the story characters and events. Children had low to moderate levels of belief in the characters and events. Children in the religious story condition had higher levels of belief in the reality of the characters…

Two experiments examined the development of recollection (recalling qualitative details about an event) and familiarity (recognizing the event) using the dual-process signal detection model. In Experiment 1 (n = 117; ages 6, 8, 10, 14, and 18 years), recollection improved from childhood to adolescence after semantic encoding but not after…

Few studies have examined whether familiarity of partner affects social responses in children with autism. This study investigated heart rate regulation (respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]: The myelinated vagus nerve's regulation of heart rate) and temporal-parietal electroencephalogram (EEG) activity while nineteen 8- to 12-year-old children with…

Three studies examined the effects of context on decisions about the reality status of novel entities. In Experiment 1 (144, 3- to 5-year-olds), participants less often claimed that novel entities were real when they were introduced in a fantastical than in a scientific context. Experiment 2 (61, 4- to 5-year-olds) revealed that defining novel…

Four experiments examined links and differences between children's copying line diagrams and drawing solid objects. Findings suggest that emphasis on order of line copying improves copying performance because line-to-line matching is an important element of the skill, whereas this does not aid drawing of the solid object, in which focus is…

Two remembering phenomenologies, vivid recollection and vague familiarity, have been extensively studied in adults using introspective self-report tasks, such as rememberknow. Because such tasks are beyond the capabilities of young children, there is no database on how these phenomenologies first develop and what factors affect them. In…

The impact of 2 types of learning experiences on children's perception of multimodal emotion cues was examined. Children (aged 7-12 years) were presented with conflicting facial and vocal emotions. The effects of familiarity were tested by varying whether emotions were presented by familiar or unfamiliar adults. The salience of particular…

Two experiments examined effects of a cognitive interview on 4- and 8-year-olds' correct recall and subsequent reporting of misinformation. Found that a cognitive interview elicited more correct details than a control interview. Eight-year-olds' reports were more complete than 4-year-olds', with more correct person, action, object, and location…