Because number is an abstract quality of a set, the way in which a number is externally represented does not change its quantitative meaning. In this study, we examined the development of the brain regions that support format-independent representation of numerical magnitude. We asked children and adults to perform both symbolic (Hindu-Arabic…

Developments in very young children's topographic representations of their own bodies were examined. Sixty-one 20- and 30-month-old children were administered tasks that indexed the ability to locate specific body parts on oneself and knowledge of how one's body parts are spatially organized, as well as body-size knowledge and self-awareness. Age…

Metacognitions of agency were investigated using a computer task in which X's and O's streamed from the top of a computer screen, and the participants moved the mouse to get the cursor to touch the X's and avoid the O's. After each 15 s trial, participants made judgments of agency and judgments of performance. Objective control was either…

The study investigates the effects of intelligence, perceptual speed and age on intraindividual growth in attentional speed and attentional accuracy over the course of a 6-minute testing session. A sample of 193 subjects completed the Advanced Progressive Matrices and the Vienna Matrices Test representing intelligence, the tests Alertness and…

The present study investigated the development of inferencing in five to seven year old children. The subjects consisted of thirty typically developing children of five, six and seven years, distributed into three groups of ten. Four sets of material were prepared and for each two types of questions were constructed. The questions being of literal…

In a sample of 153 children from preschool through second grade, relations between the use of emotion regulation strategy and children's expression of anger and sadness were coded during an observational task in which children were intentionally disappointed in the presence of the mother. Multilevel modeling was used to examine strategy use and…

This study explored age differences in preschoolers' temporal and social discounting and the association of these abilities. Research indicates that 4-year-olds are sensitive to rewards of differing magnitude (Lemmon & Moore, 2007). However, it is unclear whether preschoolers are able to consider length of time when making a choice to delay…

This study investigated whether Foygel and Dell's (2000) interactive two-step model of speech production could simulate the number and type of errors made in picture-naming by 68 children of elementary-school age. Results showed that the model provided a satisfactory simulation of the mean error profile of children aged five, six, seven, eight and…

Mechanical tools are transparent in the sense that their input-output relations can be derived from their perceptible characteristics. Modern technology creates more and more tools that lack mechanical transparency, such as in the control of the position of a cursor by means of a computer mouse or some other input device. We inquired whether an…

Physical and Name Identity letter-matching tasks were used to explore differences in interhemispheric collaboration in younger and older adults. To determine whether other factors might also be related to across/within-hemisphere processing or visual field asymmetries, neuropsychological tests measuring frontal/executive functioning were…

Executive functions play an important role in cognitive development, and during the preschool years especially, children's performance is limited in tasks that demand flexibility in their behavior. We asked whether preschoolers would exhibit limitations when they are required to apply a general rule in the context of novel stimuli on every trial…

Four- and five-year-olds completed two sets of tasks that involved reasoning about the temporal order in which events had occurred in the past or were to occur in the future. Four-year-olds succeeded on the tasks that involved reasoning about the order of past events but not those that involved reasoning about the order of future events, whereas…

We analyze theoretical differences between conceptualist and minimalist approaches to episodic processing in young children. The "episodic-like" minimalism of Clayton and Dickinson (1998) is a species of the latter. We asked whether an "episodic-like" task (structurally similar to ones used by Clayton and Dickinson) in which participants had to…

Although attentional control and memory change considerably across the life span, no research has examined how the ability to strategically remember important information (i.e., value-directed remembering) changes from childhood to old age. The present study examined this in different age groups across the life span (N = 320, 5-96 years old). A…

Purpose: This research investigated the expository language skills of young school-age children with the ultimate aim of obtaining normative data for clinical practice. Specifically, this study examined (a) the level of expository language performance of 6- and 7-year-old children with typical development and (b) age-related differences between…