Two major trends in the development of natural language concepts were found in the present study: (1) there was a clear indication that such concepts exist in a relatively fragmented form in young children; (2) young children showed a strong dependence on perceptual attributes in their definitions of concepts. (Author/CB)

Research was designed to explore the basis of children's associations in matching and directed association tasks. (Author)

Findings of this experiment demonstrate the interdependence of reasoning and action in the development of morality. (Authors)

Normal and abnormal language development depends to a great degree on the nature of the infant-mother relationship. (Author)

Preschool and third-grade children judged the emotional states of other children on the basis of expressive cues alone, contextual cues alone, or both expressive and contextual cues. Older children were more accurate than younger children only when given multiple cues. Results are discussed in terms of cognitive-developmental and social learning…

Compares data on recall of stories by Liberian nonschooled children, nonliterate adults, nonschooled literate adults and schooled literate adults to similar data on American children and adults. Results indicate a universality of certain kinds of schematic organization and their control of memorial processes. (CM)

Two experiments compared 10-year-olds' and adults' ability to choose positive and negative diagnostic tests over positive and negative nondiagnostic tests. Findings indicated that both age groups were more likely to prefer positive diagnostic tests over positive nondiagnostic tests, although only adults showed a significant preference for negative…

Two studies of toddlers and children with autism, mentally handicapped children, and normal toddlers examined whether autistic toddlers used Speaker's Direction of Gaze (SDG) strategy or less powerful Listener's Direction of Gaze (LDG) strategy to learn a word for a novel object. Results suggest autistic toddlers are insensitive to speaker's gaze…

Examined whether toddlers would use information presented through video to solve a retrieval problem. Found that 2.5-year-olds were very successful at finding a hidden toy based on viewing a televised hiding event, but 2-year-olds were not. Substantially better performance was achieved by other 2-year-olds who either watched or believed they were…

Examined the emergence of theory-motivated reasoning biases when early and middle adolescents evaluated evidence either congruent or incongruent to their theories of social class or religion. Found that higher order scientific reasoning was used to reject theory-incongruent evidence; judgmental heuristics were used to evaluate theory-congruent…

To examine children's comprehension monitoring (CM) ability more comprehensively, this study treated CM as a complex phenomenon involving multidimensional evaluation and regulation procedures and used several different measures to assess them. Results highlight the sensitivity of different measures and the importance of treating CM as a…

Extends and replicates the 1948 Soviet study by Istomina that examined the age at which children use deliberate strategies to aid recall and the effect that task context has on remembering. Subjects were 3- to 7-year-old children. Istomina's results were not replicated in this study. (HOD)

Analyses revealed consistent support for the hypothesis that number conservation is developmentally prior to liquid quantity conservation. (Authors)