To learn a language infants must learn to link arbitrary sounds to their meaning. While words are the clearest example of this link, they are not the only component of language; morphological regularities (e.g., the plural -s suffix in English) carry meaning as well. Comprehensive theories of language acquisition must account for how infants build…

Behavioral, neuropsychological, and brain imaging research points to a dedicated system for processing number that is shared across development and across species. This foundational Approximate Number System (ANS) operates over multiple modalities, forming representations of the number of objects, sounds, or events in a scene. This system is…

Experiment 1 examined the relationship between dimensional preference and proportion of optional reversal shifts among adults. Experiment 2 examined dimensional preference and shift behaviors using an intradimensional-extradimensional shift paradigm. The results indicate that adults show the same type of behavior previously throught to…

A four choice discrimination problem was used to examine imitative behavior in children matched in mental age but differing in chronological age. The finding that older children imitated less than younger children is discussed in terms of socialization. (DP)

Two experiments examined whether 40 infants would reenact what an adult did or intended to do: (1) infants observed an adult unsuccessfully attempt to complete 4 target acts; and (2) children observed a mechanical device tracing the adults' actions. Infants could infer adults' intentions and imitate target acts, suggesting that children can…

The relation between conceptual development and visual exploratory behavior was investigated by engaging eighty-four 3-, 4-, and 8-year-old children in a picture-sorting task to determine whether they would spontaneously and readily discriminate between animate and inanimate objects. (Author/JMB)