title: Development of young children's understanding that the recent past is causally bound to the present.
abstract: The results of 6 studies (involving 304 children) suggested that 4- and 5-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, understand that very recent past events determine the present. In Studies 1-3, 3- and 4-year-old children were introduced to 2 empty hiding locations. With children's backs to these locations, a camera recorded an experimenter secretly hiding a puppet in one of them. Children then viewed the videotape of what had just happened, along with another tape that depicted identical events except with a different child and with the puppet hidden in the other location. Only 4-year-olds were subsequently able to locate the puppet, even though 3-year-olds remembered the contents of the tapes and understood the equivalence between the video events and the real world. In Study 4, similar effects were obtained when a verbal analog of the test was presented to 3-5-year-olds. Studies 5 and 6 showed that when children observed 2 events in which they had just participated, only 5-year-olds understood that the most recent events were relevant.
authors.affiliation: Center for Child Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana 70504-4287, USA.
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Povinelli
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Landry
authors.forename: L A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Theall
authors.forename: B R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Clark
authors.forename: C M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Castille
mesh_terms: D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003210:Concept Formation / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013998:Time Perception / Q000502:physiology*