Three experiments examined the relative importance of original function and current function in artifact categorization for young children and adults. It was concluded that 6-year-olds have begun to organize their understanding of artifacts around the notion of original function, whereas 4-year-olds have not. Data were examined in terms of how…

Notes young children's fast mapping ability for word and fact learning. Finds children's extension of a new word to novel objects from same category but lack of extension for new facts, as replicated by Waxman and Booth, unsurprising. Poses more interesting question: is word learning done solely through more general cognitive systems or through…

Four studies examined the tendency of preschoolers to use verbal labels versus appearance information in making novel inductive inferences. Results revealed that preschoolers tended to use trait labels of "shy" or "outgoing" rather than superficial resemblance in making psychological inferences. These results could not be attributed to biases on…

Examines intellectual and metacognitive development of 300 male college students in a longitudinal design. Although the change in Dualism and Relativism confirmed previous research, Commitment, Empathy, and metacognitive measures followed a V-shaped discontinuous path. Intellectual and metacognitive development was found to vary with academic…

Demonstrates that connectionist models described in "Rethinking Innateness" (Elman, et al., 1996) depend on innately assumed representations and do not offer a genuine alternative to nativism. Presents simulation results showing that the models are incapable of deriving genuine abstract representations that are not presupposed. Maintains…

Children of Mexican American women, especially immigrants, have unexpectedly good birth weights. A study of 3,710 Mexican American, Black, and White children aged 3-4, who completed the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised, found birth weight was not a powerful predictor of child cognitive development, nor did it explain pronounced racial and…

Uses three instruments derived from experiential learning theory--the Learning Style Inventory, the Adaptive Style Inventory, and the Learning Skills Profile--to test hypotheses about the differences between balanced and specialized learning styles in a sample of 198 part-time and full-time MBA students. (Contains 81 references.) (Author/YDS)

Review of reports on correctional rehabilitation programs for youth found that cognitive, social, and interpersonal skills training was effective in assisting adolescents with transition to adulthood. The right classroom environment could be the setting for interventions that help them reentry society. (SK)

Presents the Twin Earth model, proposing specific relations between pretend play and understanding minds, from ontogenesis of pretense to later emergence of role play and representational understandings of pretense. Central to the model is supposition that pretend play functions for children much as Twin Earth functions for philosophers, by…

Six match-to-sample picture/object selection experiments explored 3- to 5-year-olds' knowledge about superordinate words and acquisition of this knowledge. Findings indicated that number of standards (one versus two), types of standards (different versus same basic-level categories), and nature of representation (pictures versus objects)…

Discusses objective knowledge and reality; objective experience and objectivity; objectivity without representation; and problems with constructivism. Argues that at issue with Muller, Sokol, and Overton's model is dispensability of the representation concept in an account of knowledge development during infancy. Concludes that a constructivist…

Describes evolutionary developmental psychology as the study of the genetic and ecological mechanisms that govern the development of social and cognitive competencies common to all human beings and the epigenetic (gene-environment interactions) processes that adapt these competencies to local conditions. Outlines basic assumptions and domains of…

Maintains that one future direction for cognitive development research involves a closer integration with knowledge about the developing brain. Presents a framework for analyzing and interpreting postnatal functional brain development. Discusses three contributing hypotheses, within which a variety of phenomena associated with the neural basis of…

This study used a well-normed task of face recognition with 102 young children with autism, pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) not otherwise specified, and non-PDD disorders (mental retardation and language disorders) matched for chronological age and either verbal or nonverbal mental age. Autistic subjects exhibited pronounced deficits in…

Presented neonates with lexical and grammatical words prepared from natural maternal speech. Found that neonates could categorically discriminate the sets based on a constellation of perceptual cues that distinguished them. Suggested that this ability to discriminate words on basis of multiple acoustic/phonological cues provides a perceptual base…