This article reviews a particular computational modeling approach to the study of psychological development--that of constructive neural networks. This approach is applied to a variety of developmental domains and issues, including Piagetian tasks, shift learning, language acquisition, number comparison, habituation of visual attention, concept…

We identify three aspects of scientific thinking beyond the control-of-variables strategy that we claim are essential for students to master as a foundation for skilled scientific thinking. The first is strategic and involves the ability to coordinate effects of multiple causal influences on an outcome. The second is a mature understanding of the…

We conducted a longitudinal analysis of the relative intensity and duration of interests associated with conceptual domains between the ages of 4 and 6 years, respectively. Results indicated a significant portion of preschool children do sustain an interest in conceptual domains during some portion of their childhood. Expected gender differences…

Mother-child conversations about pictures systematically differ from mother-child conversations about objects: Pictures are more likely than objects to elicit talk about kinds, whereas objects are more likely than pictures to elicit talk about individuals. The purpose of the current study is to examine whether this difference between pictures and…

Barrett, Richert, and Driesenga [Barrett, J. L., Richert, R. A., & Driesenga, A. (2001). "God's beliefs versus mother's: The development of nonhuman agents concepts." "Child Development," 72(1), 50-65] have suggested that children are able to conceptualize the representational properties held by certain super-natural entities, such as God, before…

This study examined developmental changes in concept formation, rule switching, and perseverative behaviors of children in the WCST by altering visual features of the test and using a new test score--the "zigzag" error score--which shows the number of shifts made between two incorrect concepts or rules. Instead of the original four 3-dimensional…

Cognitive, home, and family factors that theoretically could influence whether or not preschoolers' interests were focused on domains characterized by the acquisition of knowledge concerning object concepts (e.g., dinosaurs, horses) were assessed in a short-term longitudinal investigation of 211 4-year-olds. Boys were six times as likely as girls…

The development of concepts of individual death and species extinction were examined in two studies. Sixty-eight, 4- to 9-year-old children and their parents participated in Study 1. Although preschoolers had some understanding of the concept of death, the ability to explain death and extinction improved over the school-age years. However, all age…

Two experiments compared preschoolers' awareness of knowledge transitions involving behavioral changes to those involving vocabulary or general knowledge changes. Found that children tended to report they had learned something new when novel information was behavioral (e.g., counting in Japanese) and tended to claim prior knowledge when the novel…

Two experiments examined preschoolers' and adults' relative reliance on visual and verbal information in identification of animals and machines. Findings include both children and adults can use either visual or verbal cues in categorization, and a stricter definition is used in identifying animals. Results suggest that a perceptual to conceptual…

Adapted Keil's predictability method to examine adults' and preschoolers' conceptions of numbers, focusing on the ontological distinction between numbers and sets of objects. Found that children, like adults, attribute spatial-arrangement properties to collections much more than to numbers, although both are considered to have quantitative…

Four experiments used a free-naming task to examine four-year olds' and adults' default construals of solids and nonsolids. Found that children named an individual-related word (such as shape) for solid materials, but gave a substance-related name for nonsolids. Results suggest that children conceptualize solids and nonsolids in distinct,…

Four studies examined preschoolers' use of the cue of action initiation to infer another's desired goal. Found that differences in action initiation play an increasingly important role in 3-year-olds' mentalistic explanations of action, and that this development may be related to other critical changes occurring in their developing theory of mind.…

Study reports data on the acquisition of knowledge about astronomy in children from India, and the cosmological models they construct. Found that Indian children's cosmologies honor a variety of implicit assumptions governing the construction of initial cosmological models and that folk models are also incorporated to provide a psychologically…

Examined developmental differences in evidence evaluation skills among school children, non-college educated adults, and college students, utilizing plant growth variables. Found that children were more strongly influenced by prior beliefs and missing data than were the two adult groups. Age and educational differences were found in the…