Three experiments examined effects of age and task interruption on children's prospective memory (PM), remembering to carry out a future task. Age explained a small portion of variance in performance. Children who did not have to interrupt their ongoing activity to complete the PM tasks performed significantly better than children who had to…

Kim (1985) found that both English-speaking and Korean-speaking children find true negative sentences more difficult to verify than false negative sentences. A closer examination of the findings reveals that the difficulty is greater among Korean-speaking children. (Author/RH)

Replies to Akiyama's critique, pointing out areas of agreement between the Kim and Akiyama studies and areas of disagreement. Concludes that, contrary to Akiyama's argument, the Kim (1985) data would not directly challenge the cognition primacy hypothesis in any serious manner. (RH)

Two studies examined whether object names and functions act as cues to categories for infants. Findings indicated that both 14- and 18-month-olds were more likely to select the category match after being shown a novel category exemplar with its function than when given no additional cues. Only at 18 months did naming the objects enhance…

Three studies investigated the role of 8- and 10-year-olds' and adults' metacognitive monitoring and control processes for unbiased event recall tasks and suggestibility. Findings suggested strong tendencies to overestimate confidence regardless of age and question format. Children did not lack principal metacognitive competencies when questions…

Examined in two studies infants' reenactment of intended acts in failed-attempt paradigm. Found that when only first actions were counted, infants who observed the full-demonstration model produced more target acts. When all target acts produced within the response period were counted, infants in emulation-learning and spatial contiguity…

Investigated 3-year-olds' understanding of the appearance-reality distinction using verbal response and nonverbal response paradigms in 4 experiments. Found that about 30 percent of children were correct in verbal paradigm; over 90 percent of same children were correct in nonverbal paradigm. Participating in the verbal paradigm impeded children's…

Two studies examined efficacy of context reinstatement in enhancing 5- to 7-year olds' recall. Results showed that children exposed to a context reminder 24 hours before the six-month interview and children interviewed in the event context did not differ but reported significantly more information than children in standard interview. (Author/KB)

Investigated 4- and 7-month-olds' perception of transparency, using computer-generated achromatic or color displays depicting a semitransparent box occluding the center of a rod. Found that 4-month-olds indicated perception of transparency in color but not in achromatic displays. Seven-month-olds showed some evidence of transparency perception in…

Examined third- and seventh-graders' and college students' thinking regarding different types of disagreements. Found that participants' thinking was constrained by the realm and form of the disagreement. At all ages, participants judged some disagreements acceptable and others unacceptable, described disagreements based on different attributes,…

Younger and older American and Chinese adults were given arithmetic, perceptual speed, and spatial orientation tests. Younger adults showed substantial performance advantages over older adults. Performance of older American and Chinese adults was comparable on all ability measures. Overall pattern suggests that the advantage of Chinese adults over…

This study examined preschoolers' performance on an observation task and a search task involving the invisible displacement of an object. Findings indicated that in the observation task, there was significantly longer looking to impossible than to possible outcomes among all children. Most 3-year-olds, but significantly fewer 2.5-year-olds,…

Examined in two studies the moderating effect of perceptual load on visual selective attention. Found that children's performance was as efficient as adults' under conditions of high but not low loads, suggesting that early selection engages rapidly maturing neural systems and late selection engages later-maturing systems. The onset of early…

Examined 2-year-olds' comprehension and production of novel nouns, verbs, or actions at 3 intervals after training conducted in massed or distributed exposures. Found that for comprehension, children learned all item types in all training conditions at all retention intervals. Production was better for nonverbal actions than for either word type…

Examined cognitive profile and multiple-deficit hypothesis in Chinese developmental dyslexia. Compared 30 Chinese dyslexic children with average readers of the same chronological age (CA) and 30 average readers at the same reading level (RL) in several rapid naming, visual, phonological, and orthographic tasks. Found that dyslexic children…