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Updated: Jun 16, 2026

Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization
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Experience is Instrumental in Tuning a Link Between Language and Cognition: Evidence from 6- to 7- Month-Old Infants' Object Categorization

Published on: April 19, 2017

How do children construct a concept of age?

Kosta Boskovic1, David Barner1

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego.

Developmental Psychology
|June 15, 2026
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Last Updated: Jun 16, 2026

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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

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Development
  • Developmental Psychology

Background:

  • Understanding age is complex, requiring integration of abstract concepts like time, number, and biology.
  • Early childhood cognition involves developing abstract reasoning skills.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how young children (3-5 years) understand age.
  • To examine the influence of size, facial/bodily cues, and numerical age on children's age judgments.
  • To explore the relationship between numeracy and age understanding in early childhood.

Main Methods:

  • Two preregistered experiments involving 215 children aged 3-5 years.
  • Children identified which of two figures was older, with varying visual and numerical cues.
  • Judgments were analyzed in relation to size differences, age cues, and numerical competence.

Main Results:

  • Children often confused age with size, but this was reduced with less extreme size differences or when numerical age was provided.
  • Pronounced facial and bodily age cues also diminished the age-size confusion.
  • Children's age judgments correlated with their number word mastery, indicating a role for numeracy.

Conclusions:

  • Young children possess a developing concept of age distinct from size.
  • Age judgments are influenced by multiple cues, including visual morphology and numerical information.
  • Numeracy skills appear to support the development of an adultlike understanding of age.