Recent evidence in adults indicates that object perceptual processing is affected by the competition between action representations. In the absence of a specific motor plan, reachable objects associated with distinct structural (grasping) and functional (using) actions (e.g., calculator) elicit slower judgments than objects associated with similar…

Similar estimation biases appear in a wide range of quantitative judgments, across many tasks and domains. Often, these biases (those that occur, for example, when adults or children indicate remembered locations of objects in bounded spaces) are believed to provide evidence of Bayesian or rational cognitive processing, and are explained in terms…

The ability to use numerical evidence to revise beliefs about the physical world is an essential component of scientific reasoning that begins to develop in middle childhood. In 2 studies, we explored how data variability and consistency with participants' initial beliefs about causal factors associated with pendulums affected their ability to…

Adults attach special value to objects that link to notable people or events--authentic objects. We examined children's monetary evaluation of authentic objects, focusing on four kinds: celebrity possessions (e.g., Harry Potter's glasses), original creations (e.g., the very first teddy bear), personal possessions (e.g., your…