Background: The relation between physical activity (PA), motor skills and cognitive function in children is receiving considerable attention. To transition scientific evidence into pedagogical practice, however, we need to further our understanding of which qualitative PA characteristics are best suited to stimulate motor skills and executive…

Prosaccade and antisaccade errors in the context of social and nonsocial stimuli were investigated in youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; n = 19) a matched control sample (n = 19), and a small sample of youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (n = 9). Groups did not differ in error rates in the prosaccade condition for any stimulus…

Conflicting evidence has arisen from correlational studies regarding the role of executive control functions in Theory of Mind. The current study used dual-task manipulations of executive functions (inhibition, updating and switching) to investigate the role of these control functions in mental state and non-mental state tasks. The "Eyes"…

Five experiments using the visual habitation paradigm with 158 infants demonstrated that these 10-month olds did not use property/kind information to establish representations of 2 numerically distinct objects, a finding that provided support for the object-first hypothesis. (SLD)

First and fifth graders in two IQ groupings reconstructed pictures which were variations on a prototypic picture. In subsequent recognition, children gave confidence ratings on the "oldness" of the pictures. Prototypes were recognized with most confidence. Younger and lower IQ children were less sure about noncases being "new".…

Pictures are often used by cognitive psychologists to investigate the development of cognitive functions. Different attributes of the picture, such as object or picture familiarity, word frequency, and age of acquisition, are known to correlate with naming latency and to affect memory, particularly retrieval processes. But without the use of…

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)

Exploratory research on some aspects of the cultural theory of education in concept development are reviewed and the research findings are outlined. Three hypotheses tested are 1) that children will have cultural mappings (systems of codes for perception and action) that differ from adults; 2) that children at different ages will show a…

Adolescents, ages 11-12 and 13-14, were tested for maturity of judgment about stability-change situations and about time perspective. (CP)