British Journal of Development Psychology 

About: British Journal of Development Psychology is an academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Cognition & Cognitive development. It has an ISSN identifier of 0261-510X. Over the lifetime, 1550 publications have been published receiving 75752 citations.

Three-year-olds' difficulty with false belief: The case for a conceptual deficit

Abstract: The hypothesis, that a conceptual limitation underlies 3-year-olds' difficulty with false-belief attribution (Wimmer & Perner, 1983), was tested against three competing hypotheses. These were: (1) failure to retain essential facts, (2) failure to understand the normal expectations which give rise to false belief and (3) pragmatic misinterpretation of the test question. Results showed that false-belief attribution remained difficult for younger 3-year-olds despite their retention of essential facts and despite attempts to make expectations more explicit and prevent pragmatic misinterpretation. These findings strengthen the original hypothesis, specified here as the inability to assign conflicting truth values to propositions. This hypothesis can explain why 3-year-olds find pretend play, the distinction between expected and achieved outcomes, the real-imaginary distinction and level 1 perspective taking easier to understand than false belief, the reality-appearance distinction and level 2 perspective taking.

Dimensions of executive functioning: Evidence from children

Abstract: This study investigated dimensions of executive functioning in 8- to 13-year-old children. Three tasks from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB), two tasks from the NEPSY battery and some additional executive function (EF) tests were administered to 108 children. In line with earlier work, modest correlations among EF measures were obtained (r < .4). Both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses yielded three interrelated factors, which resembled those obtained by Miyake et al. (2000) and which were—with some reservations—labelled Working Memory (WM), Inhibition and Shifting. Age correlated with performance on most individual EF measures as well as Shifting and WM. The present findings are in agreement with contemporary views as to the simultaneous unity and diversity of EFs.

Mathematics in the streets and in schools

Abstract: An analysis of everyday use of mathematics by working youngsters in commercial transactions in Recife, Brazil, revealed computational strategies different from those taught in schools Performance on mathematical problems embedded in real-life contexts was superior to that on school-type word problems and context-free computational problems involving the same numbers and operations Implications for education are examined

A longitudinal study of bullying, dominance, and victimization during the transition from primary school through secondary school

Abstract: Bullying and victimization were studied from a longitudinal, multi-method, multi-agent perspective as youngsters made the transition from primary through middle school. Generally, bullying and aggression increased with the transition to middle school and then declined. Bullying mediated youngsters' dominance status during the transition. Bullying may be one way in which young adolescents manage peer and dominance relationships as they make the transition into new social groups. Victimization declined from primary to secondary school. Correspondingly, youngsters' peer affiliations decreased, initially with the transition, and then recovered. Victimization, however, was buffered by peer affiliation, especially like most nominations relative to friendship nominations, during this time. Additionally, and consistent with the idea that bullying is used for dominance displays, cross-sex comparisons of aggressive bouts indicated that boys targeted other boys and did not target girls. Results are discussed in terms of the changing functions of aggression during adolescence.

What minds have in common is space : Spatial mechanisms serving joint visual attention in infancy

Abstract: A series of experiments is reported which show that three successive mechanisms are involved in the first 18 months of life in ‘looking where someone else is looking’. The earliest ‘ecological’ mechanism enables the infant to detect the direction of the adult's visual gaze within the baby's visual field but the mother's signal alone does not allow the precise localization of the target. Joint attention to the same physical object also depends on the intrinsic, attention-capturing properties of the object in the environment. By about 12 months, we have evidence for presence of a new ‘geometric’ mechanism. The infant extrapolates from the orientation of the mother's head and eyes, the intersection of the mother's line of sight within a relatively precise zone of the infant's own visual space. A third ‘representational’ mechanism emerges between 12 and 18 months, with an extension of joint reference to places outside the infant's visual field. None of these mechanisms require the infant to have a theory that others have minds; rather the perceptual systems of different observers ‘meet’ in encountering the same objects and events in the world. Such a ‘realist’ basis for interpersonal knowledge may offer an alternative starting point for development of intrapersonal knowledge, rather than the view that mental events can only be known by construction of a theory.