When reasoning about a representation (e.g., a toy lion), children often engage in "iconic realism," whereby representations are reported to have properties of their real-life referents. The present studies examined an inverse difficulty that we dub "representational disregard": overlooking (i.e., disregarding) a…

Although children frequently engage in creative activities (in which they make foods and objects by hand), the development and scope of children's thinking about handmade items is largely unexplored. In the present studies, we examined whether 4- to 12-year-old children at a local children's museum (54% girls, 46% boys; 51% White, 11% Asian/Asian…

Recent research questions whether children conceptualize race as stable. We examined participants' beliefs about the relative stability of race and emotion, a temporary feature. Participants were White adults and children ages 5-6 and 9-10 (Study 1) and racial minority children ages 5-6 (Study 2). Participants were presented with target children…

The domain-specific approach to socialization processes presented by J. E. Grusec and M. Davidov (this issue) provides a compelling framework for integrating and interpreting a large and disparate body of research findings, and it generates a wealth of testable new hypotheses. At the same time, it introduces core theoretical questions regarding…

Generics are sentences such as "ravens are black" and "tigers are striped", which express generalizations concerning kinds. Quantified statements such as "all tigers are striped" or "most ravens are black" also express generalizations, but unlike generics, they specify how many members of the kind have the property in question. Recently, some…

Evaluating whether a limited sample of evidence provides a good basis for induction is a critical cognitive task. We hypothesized that whereas adults evaluate the inductive strength of samples containing multiple pieces of evidence by attending to the relations among the exemplars (e.g., sample diversity), six-year-olds would attend to the degree…

This study tests the firm distinction children are said to make between living and nonliving kinds. Three, 4-, and 5-year-old children and adults reasoned about whether items that varied on 3 dimensions (alive, face, behavior) had a range of properties (biological, psychological, perceptual, artifact, novel, proper names). Findings demonstrate…

This study examined the development of an understanding of authenticity among 112 children (preschoolers, kindergarten, 1st graders, and 4th graders) and 119 college students. Participants were presented with pairs of photographs depicting authentic and non-authentic objects and asked to pick which one belongs in a museum and which one they would…

Tests the distinction between inferring new categories on the basis of property information (predicted to be difficult) and inferring new properties on the basis of category information (predicted to be easier) among 57 preschool children. (HOD)

Investigated age differences from early childhood to adulthood in the capacity to understand--in a psychologically meaningful way--traits in stories wherein main characters perform actions based on a positive, negative, or incidental motive that result in an emotional consequence for another character. Found that even 5- to 6-year-olds made trait…

Generic sentences (such as "Birds lay eggs") are important in that they refer to kinds (e.g., birds as a group) rather than individuals (e.g., the birds in the henhouse). The present set of studies examined aspects of how generic nouns are understood by English speakers. Adults and children (4- and 5-year-olds) were presented with scenarios about…

This paper examines the cognitive process of concept development in preschool children, based on recent psychological research. Rather than attempting an exhaustive review of the more than 7000 articles written on children's concepts of categories, the paper highlights and illustrates four key themes that emerge from recent research: first,…

Explores the extent of preschoolers' knowledge of mixed emotions, and whether difficulty in discerning mixed emotions stems from beliefs about how emotions are portrayed on the face. Found that both four- and five-year olds can identify mixed emotions. Only five-year olds (with appropriate scaffolding and with simple, clear stories) can…

In one of three studies, preschoolers judged that items that shared material properties, such as metal composition, would share dispositional properties, such as corrodibility in water, and that items of the same object type, such as baseball bats, would share functional properties, such as the ability to accelerate a baseball. (BC)

Examined reasoning about physics principles within and across ontological kinds among 5- and 7-year-olds and adults. Found that all age groups tended to appropriately generalize what they learned across ontological kinds. Children assumed that principles learned with reference to one ontological kind were more likely to apply within that kind than…