In natural behaviour, animals actively interrogate their environments using endogenously
generated 'question-and-answer'strategies. However, in laboratory settings participants …

Forming conceptually-rich social categories helps people to navigate the complex social
world by allowing them to reason about the likely thoughts, beliefs, actions, and interactions …

What do infants know? How does the knowledge that they begin with prepare them for
learning about the particular physical, cultural, and social world in which they live? Answers …

This article provides a synthesis and overview of a theory of cognitive development, rational
constructivism. The basic tenets of this view are as follows:(a) Initial state: Human infants …

Active learning is a critical component of human development, however, the mechanisms
supporting it are not fully understood. Given that early learning experiences may affect both …

Few phenomena in childhood are as compelling—and mystifying—as play. We review five
proposals about the relationship between play and development. We believe each captures …

Social groups are a pervasive feature of human life. One factor that is often understudied in
the literature on person perception and social categorization is language. Yet, someone's …

Curiosity–broadly defined as the desire to acquire new information–enhances learning and
memory in adults. In addition, interest in the information (ie, when the information is …

In this article, I present a selective review of research on speech perception development
and its relation to reference, word learning, and other aspects of language acquisition …

An argument that the meaning of written or auditory linguistic signals is not derived from the
input but results from the brain's internal construction process. When we read a text or listen …