Studies were made of (1) young children's use of body-weight type for processing information about peers, and (2) the development of children's stereotypical knowledge about characteristics associated with body-weight type. For the first study, a measure was developed to assess "body salience," or the degree to which children use weight…

Pioneering research has shown that infants are capable of perceptual discrimination and has provided some indication of the nature of the discrimination; that is, what stimuli are differentiable. Studies have demonstrated that significant effects exist, in stimulus-pair comparisons, for age of infant, speed of movement of stimulus during…

Describes two experiments that investigated the effects of two thematic retrieval cues on the types of information recalled from short stories by elementary school children and adults. Shows adults and fourth graders, but not younger children, spontaneously generated thematic retrieval plans which enabled them to remember information from both…

Compares kindergartners' and third and sixth graders' understanding of an illusion reported by the philosopher John Locke, in which two hands simultaneously experience two different temperatures from a container of water at one temperature. (HOD)

Test Battery was designed to explore the auditory and the visual perceptual processing abilities of children from five through eight. (Authors)

Four groups of children (N=80; C.A. 6.6. to 12.5; M.A. 7.9 to 14.7) were tested for ability to reproduce five-element two- and three-dimensional patterns. Significant interaction and main effects were found. Three-dimensional pattern performance increased with age; all ages performed well on two-dimensional patterns. (Author/DB)

Twenty children, aged 7-12, with severe visual impairments completed a series of visual tasks requiring interpretation, analysis, manipulation, and visual motor coordination. Findings are discussed in terms of total performance, individual task performance, performance of younger versus older children, and performance of good versus poor readers.…

Examines first-, third-, and fifth-grade children's ability to hear two simultaneous melodies. Finds that older children identify two melodies faster and more accurately than do younger children, and that register and timbre combinations affect which melody is identified first. Notes implications for elementary music education. (DSK)

Decision-making over time is an important aspect of adaptive social functioning. The main goal of this study was to investigate the development of this ability in young children. A simplified version of the Iowa Gambling Task was given to 69 children at 3 ages (3, 4, and 6 years). Children were also given an awareness test to assess their…

Age-related characteristics of children's short-term retention of kinesthetic movement information were examined in this study. Three age levels (6-, 8-, and 10-year old children) were tested for recall of preselected location movements on a linear slide apparatus. Immediate and delayed recall were used in 16 trials. The results indicate that…

A study that compared the receptive and expressive prosodic abilities of 30 Dutch children (ages 4-6) with language impairments to the abilities of typical children, found they performed less accurately on a prosodic imitation task but did not differ on an emotion identification task. Children performed better with increasing age. (Author/CR)

Examines perceptions of adults compared with preschool children in assuming object permanence or discontinuity of existence when an object is removed from their immediate perceptual field. Results showed that a belief in the possibility of the discontinuity of material objects is not unique to the minds of preschool children but can also be…

The purpose of this study was to explore how children use location and distance cues to reproduce movements as compared with adults. Subjects were three groups of children, aged 6, 8, and 10, and one group of adults. A linear slide was used by the blindfolded subjects to indicate one of two experimenter-defined stops. Distance and location were…

Although numerous studies have indicated that older persons process visual information more slowly than younger persons, the precise nature of age-associated changes in the processing of visually presented information remains unclear. Older adults (N=18) and college students (N=18) performed a visual search task in which lists of words and…