ABSTRACT

In the context of cognitive developmental theory, the question of whether the mind should be thought of as a general or modular device is normally translated into the question of whether children’s development in different conceptual domains does or does not take place at the same rate. It is with this question that the present chapter is concerned. In three of the studies that were reported in earlier chapters supplementary measures were presented, in order to address this question in a preliminary fashion. The present chapter begins with a review of these studies, and a presentation of the additional data that they generated. A fourth study is then described, which was designed to test the conclusions from the first three studies in a more rigorous and systematic fashion.