Children's suggestibility is typically measured using a three-stage "event-misinformation-test" procedure. We examined whether suggestibility is influenced by the time delays imposed between these stages, and in particular whether the temporal discriminability of sources (event and misinformation) predicts performance. In a novel approach, the…

The current study compared the development of holistic processing for faces and non-face visual objects by testing for the composite effect for faces and frontal images of cars in 3- to 5-year-old children and adults in a series of four experiments using a two-alternative forced-choice recognition task. Results showed that a composite effect for…

Two studies compared children's attention to sample composition--whether a sample provides a diverse representation of a category of interest--during teacher-led and learner-driven learning contexts. In Study 1 (n = 48), 5-year-olds attended to sample composition to make inferences about biological properties only when samples were presented by a…

The sensitivity of size perception to context has been used to distinguish between "vision for action" and "vision for perception", and to study cultural, psychopathological, and developmental differences in perception. The status of that evidence is much debated, however. Here we use a rigorous double dissociation paradigm based on the Ebbinghaus…

To whom do children look when deciding on their own preferences? To address this question, 3-year-old children were asked to choose between objects or activities that were endorsed by unfamiliar people who differed in gender, race (White, Black), or age (child, adult). In Experiment 1, children demonstrated robust preferences for objects and…

In two experiments, 330 3- to 4-year-olds competed for stickers in a game in which the optimal response strategy was to point to an empty box that their opponent would receive in order to obtain a baited box for themselves. When the baited box contained stickers, children showed a strong tendency to point at the baited box and therefore lose the…

Research has shown that preschoolers monitor others' prior accuracy and prefer to learn from individuals who have the best track record. We investigated the scope of preschoolers' attributions based on an individual's prior accuracy. Experiment 1 revealed that 5-year-olds (but not 4-year-olds) used an individual's prior accuracy at labelling to…

Spatial construction tasks are basic tests of visual-spatial processing. Two studies have assessed spatial construction skills in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and young children (Homo sapiens sapiens) with a block modelling task. Study 1a subjects were three young chimpanzees and five adult chimpanzees. Study 1b subjects were 30 human children…

In two experiments, children aged 3, 4 and 5 years (N = 61) were given conflicting information about the names and functions of novel objects by two informants, one a familiar teacher, the other an unfamiliar teacher. On pre-test trials, all three age groups invested more trust in the familiar teacher. They preferred to ask for information and to…

The ability to track moving objects, a crucial skill for mature performance on everyday spatial tasks, has been hypothesized to require a specialized mechanism that may be available in infancy (i.e. indexes). Consistent with the idea of specialization, our previous work showed that object tracking was more impaired than a matched spatial memory…

Our objectives were to document and examine socioeconomic gradients across a comprehensive set of child development measures in a population living in extreme poverty, and to interpret these gradients in light of findings from the neuroscience literature. We assessed a nationally representative sample of 3-6-year-old children (n = 1332) from 150…

People gesture a great deal when speaking, and research has shown that listeners can interpret the information contained in gesture. The current research examines whether learners can also use co-speech gesture to inform language learning. Specifically, we examine whether listeners can use information contained in an iconic gesture to assign…

Threatening facial expressions can signal the approach of someone or something potentially dangerous. Past research has established that adults have an attentional bias for angry faces, visually detecting their presence more quickly than happy or neutral faces. Two new findings are reported here. First, evidence is presented that young children…

In three experiments (N = 123; 148; 28), children observed a video in which two speakers offered alternative labels for unfamiliar objects. In Experiment 1, 3- to 5-year-olds endorsed the label given by a speaker who had previously labeled familiar objects accurately, rather than that given by a speaker with a history of inaccurate labeling, even…

In their first years, children's understanding of mental states seems to improve dramatically, but the mechanisms underlying these changes are still unclear. Such "theory of mind" (ToM) abilities may arise during development, or have an innate basis, developmental changes reflecting limitations of other abilities involved in ToM tasks (e.g.…