Theories of language development—informed largely by studies Western, middleclass infants—have highlighted the that caregivers direct to children as a key driver learning. However, some have argued development unfolds similarly across environmental contexts, including those in which childdirected is scarce. This raises possibility are able learn from other sources their environments, particularly directed others environment. We explore this hypothesis with infants an indigenous...

Subjective Social Status (SSS) is a robust predictor of psychological and physiological outcomes, frequently measured as self-reported placement on the MacArthur Scale Status. Despite its importance, however, there are still open questions regarding how early into ontogeny SSS can be measured, well measures extended to non-Western small-scale populations. Here, we investigate internal consistency responses ladder across four cultures by comparing more explicit social comparison questions. We...

Human language relies on a finite lexicon to express potentially infinite set of ideas. A key result this tension is that words acquire novel senses over time. However, the cognitive processes underlie historical emergence new word are poorly understood. Here, we present computational framework formalizes competing views how might emerge by attaching existing word. We test ability models predict temporal order in which individual have emerged, using an English spanning past millennium. Our...

Abstract Parents with fewer educational and economic resources (low socioeconomic‐status, SES) tend to speak less their children, consequences for children's later life outcomes. Despite this well‐established highly popularized link, research addresses why the SES “word gap” exists. Moreover, while has assessed individual‐level contributors word gap—like differences in parenting knowledge—we know little about how structural constraints that vary according might affect caregivers’ speech. In...

How do children resolve the problem of indeterminacy when learning a new word? By one account, adopt taxonomic assumption and expect word to denote only members particular category. According version this constraint, young should represent polysemous words that label multiple kinds—for example, chicken, which labels an animal its meat—as separate unrelated each encode single kind. Our studies provide evidence against account: we show four- five-year-old spontaneously has labeled meaning...

Abstract Many metaphor theorists argue that our mental experience of time is grounded in understanding space, including motion through space. Results from recent experiments – which people think about motion, turn influences their thinking support this position. Still, many questions remain the nature metaphorical connection between and Can mere suggestion influence how reason time, if so, when how? Three investigated "abstract" sequences numbers or letters would reasoning time. Our results...

Human language relies on a finite lexicon to express potentiallyinfinite set of ideas. A key result this tension is that wordsacquire novel senses over time. However, the cognitive processesthat underlie historical emergence new word arepoorly understood. Here, we present computational frameworkthat formalizes competing views how wordmight emerge by attaching existing word. We testthe ability models predict temporal order in whichthe individual words have emerged, using an historicallexicon...

Abstract Can the experience of disagreement lead young children to reason in more sophisticated ways? Across two preregistered studies, four‐ six‐year‐old US ( N = 136, 50% female, mixed ethnicities, data collected 2020–2022) experienced either a or an agreement with confederate about causal mechanism after being presented ambiguous evidence. We measured (1) children's confidence their belief before and (dis)agreement, (2) how long searched for information correct answer. Disagreement,...

Abstract Research on the development of implicit intergroup attitudes has placed heavy emphasis race, leaving open how social categories that are prominent in other cultures might operate. We investigate two India's primary means distinction, caste and religion, explore explicit towards these groups minority‐status Muslim children majority‐status Hindu children, latter drawn from various positions system. Results tests find parallel previous findings for race: higher‐caste as well...

We introduce a novel method to test classic idea in developmental science: that children's attention stimulus is driven by how much they can learn from it. Preschoolers (4-6 years, M=4.6) watched video where distracting animation accompanied static, page-by-page illustrations of storybook. The audio narration for each storybook page was looped such children could listen it up 6 total times. However, the automatically ended if child looked at distractor an extended period time, indicating...

Conflicts arise when members of one religion apply their norms to another religion. Two studies explored how hundred 9‐ 15‐year‐old Hindu and Muslim children from India reason about the scope religious norms. Both Hindus Muslims a diverse Hindu–Muslim school (Study 1) homogeneous 2) more often judged it wrong for violate norms, compared said opposite Muslims. In contrast, both harm others. Thus, even in setting marred by conflict, can restrict religion's that religion, providing basis...

We can retain only a portion of the visual information that we encounter within our working memory. Which factors influence how much remember? Recent studies have demonstrated capacity memory is influenced by type to be remembered and greater for real-world objects than abstract stimuli. One explanation this effect semantic knowledge associated with makes them easier maintain in Previous indirectly tested proposal led inconsistent conclusions. Here, directly whether confers benefit using...