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Published on: June 20, 2020
On the validity and robustness of the scale error phenomenon in early childhood
Judy S DeLoache1, Vanessa LoBue, Mieke Vanderborght
1University of Virginia, USA.
Abstract:
Scale errors is a term referring to very young children's serious efforts to perform actions on miniature replica objects that are impossible due to great differences in the size of the child's body and the size of the target objects. We report three studies providing further documentation of scale errors and investigating the validity and robustness of the phenomenon. In the first, we establish that 2-year-olds' behavior in response to prompts to "pretend" with miniature replica objects differs dramatically from scale errors. The second and third studies address the robustness of the phenomenon and its relative imperviousness to attempts to influence the rate of scale errors.
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