Recent studies have shown that the metacognitive judgments adults infer from their experiences of encoding effort vary in accordance with their naive theories of intelligence. To determine whether this finding extends to elementary schoolchildren, a study was conducted in which 27 third graders (M[subscript age] = 8.27) and 24 fifth graders…

Investigated two- to four-year-old children's sensitivity to perceptual and normative standards of comparison and their responses when standards conflict. Even the youngest children were capable of using normative and perceptual standards and could apply different standards of comparison when judging size. (RJC)

Perceptual and categorical similarity were varied independently in a concept-matching task administered to young children. Perceptual similarity proved to be the primary determinant of difficulty level. Superordinate and basic matches were equally difficult. When perceptual resemblance was minimal, most children were unable to recognize matches at…

Investigated the relation between 7- and 8-year-olds' interpretations of human behavior and children's beliefs about the stability of human traits. Found that the belief that traits are stable predicted a greater tendency to make trait judgments in the academic and sociomoral domains, and an increased focus on outcomes such as performance and…

Describes three studies that examined how young children distinguish between the real, physical world and the mental world; between objects and thoughts; and between doing something and imagining it. (HOD)

Examined 5- to 12-year-olds' judgment regarding the behavior of balance scales and other levers whose arms varied in a causal or a noncausal variable. Results indicated age-related increases in correct judgments about the influence of physical features of objects at an earlier age than about spatial relations between objects. (MOK)