Examines the relative utility of exemplar and linguistic information for acquiring basic and superordinate categories. Developmental differences were predicted in the ability to benefit from the linguistically specified information. Preschool, kindergarten, and first-grade children were tested. (Author/SS)

A battery of four tasks which measure the interhemispheric transfer of information was utilized to test the hypothesis that there will be an increase in efficiency of interhemispheric transfer with increasing age. (MP)

Investigates performance of 8, 10, 12 year olds and adults on cognitive tasks in terms of several processing-speed measures, each of which may change independently with age. Results underscore the complexity of developmental change in processing efficiency. (Author/RH)

Second-grade children, third-grade children, and adults judged whether pictures were members of a positive or negative memory set while trying to ignore irrelevant words printed inside the pictures. (JMB)

Although adults and children were found to be equally accurate in their initial estimates of recall, adults used that information more skillfully in choosing what to study and deciding when they had studied sufficiently. (Author/JMB)

Four experiments with children aged 5 through 12 tested the relationship between short-term memory (STM) and processing capacity. The results suggest that effects obtained with STM span do not provide clear indications of overall working memory development, because STM span and the processing space component of working memory entail distinct…

Tested infants at five and seven months of age for visual novelty preference. Tested the same infants at 12, 24, and 36 months by means of a battery of cognitive and language tests that compare novelty preference to general and specific cognitive abilities. Results support recent findings that infant novelty preference is predictive of later IQ.…

Three experiments used a familiarization/novelty or a habituation/dishabituation procedure to examine developmental change in infants' tendency to parse exemplars into separate categories. Results indicated that 10-month olds appeared to form differentiated categories, whereas 4- and 7-month olds formed a single category to include the range of…

This study tested three hypothesized mechanisms through which explanations might facilitate problem-solving strategy generalization in kindergarteners through second graders. Results suggested that explanations facilitated generalization through the creation of novel goal structures that enabled children to persist in use of the new strategy…

Interviewed 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, and 10-year olds, and adults regarding their knowledge about primary-consciousness, reflective-consciousness, and control activities. Found that the recognition that people do not engage in conscious mental activities when unconscious is still developing during the late middle-childhood years. (Author/KB)

The prefrontal cortex modulates executive control processes and structurally matures throughout adolescence. Consistent with these events, prefrontal functions that demand high levels of executive control may mature later than those that require working memory but decreased control. To test this hypothesis, adolescents (9 to 20 years old)…

Four-year-olds were tested for their ability to use differences in the spacing among features to recognize familiar faces. They were given a storybook depicting multiple views of 2 children. They returned to the laboratory 2 weeks later and used a "magic wand" to play a computer game that tested their ability to recognize the familiarized faces…

Children, 24-36 months old, were studied in an effort to examine the influence of cognitive development on the nature of information extracted from stimuli and coded into memory. (ST)

A modified version of Inhelder's and Piaget's bending-rods task was administered twice in succession to 9-, 11-, and 13-year-olds. Subjects were then categorized as spontaneous, latent, or nonusers of the formal operational control-of-variables strategy according to whether they used the strategy on the first, second, or neither administration.…

Groups of eight- and ten-year-olds and adults visually searched for the presence of a target letter or number in fields of items that were either of the same or a different category (letter or number) than the target. (JMB)