Children with a history of behaviorally inhibited (BI) temperament face a heightened risk for anxiety disorders and often use control strategies that are less planful. Although these relations have been observed concurrently in early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence, few studies leverage longitudinal data to examine long-term…

When semantically-related photos appear with true-or-false trivia claims, people more often rate the claims as true compared to when photos are absent--"truthiness." This occurs even when the photos lack information useful for assessing veracity. We tested whether truthiness changed in magnitude as a function of participants' age in a…

Debates about lowering the voting age often center on whether 16- and 17-year-old adolescents possess sufficient cognitive capacity and political knowledge to participate in politics. Little empirical research has examined age differences in adolescents' and adults' complexity of reasoning about political issues. We surveyed adults (n = 778;…

Children's early environmental experiences are often considered highly influential for later life development. Yet, environmental contexts, such as the home and early care and education (ECE) setting, and multiple aspects of each setting, are not typically examined concurrently. In this study, we examined associations between cognitive stimulation…

The age-related positivity effect--a preference for processing positive stimuli over negative stimuli--is posited by socioemotional selectivity theory to reflect a focus on emotional gratification in older age. Yet, the positivity effect has been investigated with stimuli, such as photographs of faces and visual scenes, that have little (to no)…

Although most of the faces we encounter daily are moving ones, much of what we know about face processing and its development is based on studies using static faces that emphasize holistic processing as the hallmark of mature face processing. Here the authors examined the effects of facial movements on face processing developmentally in children…

The development of the ability to categorize speech sounds is often viewed as occurring primarily during infancy via perceptual learning mechanisms. However, a number of studies suggest that even after infancy, children's categories become more categorical and well defined through about age 12. We investigated the cognitive changes that may be…

The present study prospectively evaluated cumulative early life perceived stress in relation to differential change in memory and perceptual speed from middle childhood to early adulthood. We aimed to identify periods of cognitive development susceptible to the effects of perceived stress among both adopted and nonadopted individuals. The sample…

Adolescence is a vulnerable period for the initiation and peak of many harmful risk-taking behaviors such as smoking, which is among the most addictive and deadliest behaviors. Generic metatheories like the theory of triadic influence (TTI) suggest that interrelated risk factors across multiple domains (i.e., intrapersonal and…

Developmental differences in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and superior parietal cortex (SPC) activation are associated with differences in how children, adolescents, and adults learn from performance feedback in rule-learning tasks (Crone, Zanolie, Leijenhorst, Westenberg, & Rombouts, 2008). Both…

This 4-year study examined longitudinal interplays between adolescents' and mothers' self-reported empathic concern (EC) and perspective taking (PT). We investigated (a) whether adolescents' EC predicted rank-order change in their PT over time, or vice versa; (b) whether mothers' empathy predicted relative increases in adolescents' empathy; (c)…

Three experiments assessed the development of children's part and configural (part-relational) processing in object recognition during adolescence. In total, 312 school children aged 7-16 years and 80 adults were tested in 3-alternative forced choice (3-AFC) tasks. They judged the correct appearance of upright and inverted presented familiar…

Inhibitory control allows for the regulation of thought and action and interacts with motivational variables, such as reward, to modify behavior adaptively as environments change. The authors examined the effects of reward on two distinct forms of inhibitory control, cancellation and restraint. Typically developing children and adolescents…

The present investigation examined 8- to 16-year-olds' tendency to lie, the sophistication of their lies, and related cognitive factors. Participants were left alone and asked not to look at the answers to a test, but the majority peeked. The researcher then asked a series of questions to examine whether the participants would lie about their…

The present study examined the impact of the developmental timing of trauma exposure on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and psychosocial functioning in a large sample of community-dwelling older adults (N = 1,995). Specifically, we investigated whether the negative consequences of exposure to traumatic events were greater for traumas…