Children's different use of alignment cues when encoding and when producing a match-to-target

Young children are frequently inaccurate in a simultaneous alignment task in which a square has to be laid down in alignment with a spatially discontiguous square, or a diamond with a diamond. The size of the inaccuracy can be manipulated by providing congruent or incongruent contextual cues. Three new results are reported here. First, accuracy at aligning the context itself seemed to obey grossly similar rules to those governing alignment to targets within the context. Secondly, the major determinant of contextual effects seemed to operate at the level of organizing the response rather than at encoding the display. Thirdly, whilst congruent cues on the response plane aided performance, they did not when they were located in the stimulus plane. Two suggestions are made to explain these effects. Firstly, children do not distribute their available orientation-encoding resources economically when forming a mental representation of the stimulus; secondly, they attempt the simultaneous matching task by using a sequential strategy. The observed alignment error may be a product of their inefficient collation of evidence from the perceptual cues monitored during the two earlier stages of the sequential strategy.     

The ABCs of analogical abilities: Evidence for formal analogical reasoning abilities in 24‐month‐olds

Solving formal analogy problems requires the identification of an initial term and the transformation that occurs between the initial two terms as well as the determination of the final term. Experiment 1 tested 24‐month‐olds' ability to determine final terms when they were shown the initial term and told the transformation that was to occur. Children selected their responses from an array of two principled distracters. The children were able to determine the correct final term when they were given information about the initial term and transformation. Experiment 2 tested 24‐month‐olds' ability to solve final‐term problems, partial analogies, and complete analogies. The children solved all the three types of problems.     

SOMATIC ATTRACTIVENESS: AS IN OTHER THINGS, MODERATION IS BEST

Much evidence exists that facially attractive persons are perceived to possess more positive personality traits than are facially unattractive persons. This stereotype is known to be more potent when applied to women than to men. Two experiments were conducted to investigate whether a similar physical attractiveness stereotype exists when "attractive" is defined in terms of physique and "positive" is defined in terms of sex role characteristics and future life happiness. Both the sex role and the life happiness items revealed a tendency for those of intermediate attractiveness to be rated highest. In terms of somatic beauty, the results indicate that while a physical attractiveness stereotype exists, its content is not compatible with the thesis that "what is beautiful is good"