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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 13, 2026

A Method for Investigating Age-related Differences in the Functional Connectivity of Cognitive Control Networks Associated with Dimensional Change Card Sort Performance

A Method for Investigating Age-related Differences in the Functional Connectivity of Cognitive Control Networks Associated with Dimensional Change Card Sort Performance

Published on: May 7, 2014

Developmental changes in information central to artifact representation: evidence from 'functional fluency' tasks.

Margaret Anne Defeyter¹, S E Avons, Tamsin C German

¹Division of Psychology, Northumbria University, UK.

Developmental Science

|August 9, 2007

Summary

Younger children

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Portable Intermodal Preferential Looking (IPL): Investigating Language Comprehension in Typically Developing Toddlers and Young Children with Autism

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Published on: December 14, 2012

Area of Science:

Cognitive Development
Child Psychology
Object Representation

Background:

Children's understanding of objects evolves with age.
Design information plays a role in artifact representation.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how children represent object function.
To explore the developmental shift in using design information for artifact representation.

Main Methods:

Three experiments were conducted with 5- and 7-year-old children.
Participants generated multiple uses for familiar and novel named objects.

Main Results:

Older children focused on known design functions.
Younger children showed more flexible, but mechanically constrained, responses.
Older children produced varied functions only when object design was unknown.

Conclusions:

Object function representations change during childhood.
Design information becomes increasingly important for artifact representation as children age.