Saccade latency is widely used across infant psychology to investigate infants' understanding of events. Interpreting particular latency values requires knowledge of standard saccadic RTs, but there is no consensus as to typical values. This study provides standard estimates of infants' (n = 194, ages 9 to 15 months) saccadic RTs under a range of…

The capacity to ascribe goals and intentions to others is a fundamental step in child cognitive development. The aim of the present study was to assess the age at which these capabilities are acquired in typically developing children. Two experiments were carried out. In the first experiment, 4 groups of children (age range = 3 years 2 months-7…

Relational integration refers to the process whereby several variables are integrated within a single cognitive representation. In cognitive and developmental science, it is regarded as a central function of working memory that may contribute to the development of higher order processes, such as reasoning and fluid intelligence. In the present…

Previous research has established that family ethnic socialization messages promote ethnic-racial identity (ERI) development, yet it is unknown whether these effects remain constant throughout adolescence. The current study examined the time-varying effects of family ethnic socialization on ERI exploration and resolution among Latino adolescents…

Beliefs about aging influence how we interpret and respond to changes within and around us. Essentialist beliefs about aging are defined as views that link chronological age with inherent and immutable properties underlying aging-related changes. These beliefs may influence the experience of aging-related changes and shape people's outlook of the…

Sleep spindles act as a powerful marker of individual differences in cognitive ability. Sleep spindle parameters correlate with both age-related changes in cognitive abilities and with the age-independent concept of IQ. While some studies have specifically demonstrated the relationship between sleep spindles and intelligence in young children, our…

Manifestations of internalizing problems, such as specific symptoms of anxiety and depression, can change across development, even if individuals show strong continuity in rank-order levels of internalizing problems. This illustrates the concept of heterotypic continuity, and raises the question of whether common measures might be construct-valid…

The stability of callous-unemotional (CU) traits and both individual and contextual factors that influence this stability have been studied in community adolescent samples but not to great extent in adolescents who have been arrested. We estimated the developmental changes in CU traits measured over the course of 36 months (6-month intervals)…

This study examined how children's perceptions of economic inequalities impacted their moral judgments about access to opportunities. The sample included ethnically diverse 8- to 14-year-olds (N = 267; M = 11.61 years, SD = 1.88) of middle- to upper-middle-income backgrounds. The larger the economic inequality in access to opportunities children…

This study concerns peer selection and influence dynamics in early adolescents' friendships regarding academic achievement. Using longitudinal social network analysis (RSiena), both selection and influence processes were investigated for students' average grades and their cluster-specific grades (i.e., language, exact, and social cluster). Data…

Girls who receive higher quality fathering engage in less risky sexual behavior (RSB) than their peers. Previous research identifies higher levels of parental monitoring/knowledge and reduced affiliation with deviant peers as potential mediators of this observed fathering effect. Although paternal investment theory posits a causal effect of…

Cognitive performance is characterized by at least two distinct life course trajectories. Many cognitive abilities (e.g., "effortful processing" abilities, including fluid reasoning and processing speed) improve throughout early adolescence and start declining in early adulthood, whereas other abilities (e.g., "crystallized"…

The current study investigated the role of theory of mind development in school readiness among 120 low-income preschool and kindergarten children. A short-term longitudinal design was used to examine relations among theory of mind, the understanding of teaching, and learning behaviors and their collective role in children's literacy and numeracy…

There have been long-standing differences of opinion regarding the influence of the face relative to that of contextual information on how individuals process and judge facial expressions of emotion. However, developmental changes in how individuals use such information have remained largely unexplored and could be informative in attempting to…

Theoretical perspectives of cognitive development have maintained that functional integration of the prefrontal cortex across infancy underlies the emergence of attentional control and higher cognitive abilities in early childhood. To investigate these proposed relations, we tested whether functional integration of prefrontal regions across the…