Children's well-documented tendency to behave as if they know more than they do about uncertain events is reduced under two conditions: when the outcome of a chance event has yet to be determined and when one unknown outcome has occurred but is difficult to imagine. In Experiment 1, in line with published findings, 5- and 6-year-olds (N=61)…

Comments on an article by Rips et al. L. J. Rips, S. Blok, and G. Newman (2006) proposed that singular concepts, which support the tracing of individual objects across their existence, are governed by a principle of causal continuity. They purported to show that causal continuity is better than existing theories at explaining judgments of the…

Responds to comments made by Rhemtulla and Xu on the current authors' original paper Concepts of individual objects (e.g., a favorite chair or pet) include knowledge that allows people to identify these objects, sometimes after long stretches of time. In an earlier article, the authors set out experimental findings and mathematical modeling to…

We introduce computer-based methodologies for investigating object identification in 3- to 5-year-old children. In two experiments, preschool children and adults indicated when they could identify degraded pictures of common objects as those pictures either gradually improved or degraded in clarity. Clarity transformations were implemented in four…

Experience with a variety of symbolic artifacts has been proposed as a mechanism underlying symbolic development. In this study, the parents of 120 2-year-old children who participated in symbolic object retrieval tasks completed a questionnaire regarding their children's naturalistic experience with symbolic artifacts and activities. In separate…

Infants' abilities to identify objects based on their perceptual features develop gradually during the first year and possibly beyond. Earlier we reported [Kaldy, Z., & Leslie, A. M. (2003). Identification of objects in 9-month-old infants: Integrating "what" and "where" information. Developmental Science, 6, 360-373] that infants at 9 months of…

Fourteen-month-old infants saw an object hidden inside a container and were removed from the disappearance locale for 24 hr. Upon their return, they searched correctly for the hidden object, demonstrating object permanence and long-term memory. Control infants who saw no disappearance did not search. In Experiment 2, infants returned to see the…