The field of children's testimony is in turmoil, but a resolution to seemingly intractable debates now appears attainable. In this review, we place the current disagreement in historical context and describe psychological and legal views of child witnesses held by scholars since the turn of the 20th century. Although there has been consistent interest in children's suggestibility over the past century, the past 15 years have been the most active in terms of the number of published studies and novel theorizing about the causal mechanisms that underpin the observed findings. A synthesis of this research posits three "families " of factors—cognitive, social, and biological—that must be considered if one is to understand seemingly contradictory interpretations of the findings. We conclude that there are reliable age differences in suggestibility but that even very young children are capable of recalling much that is forensically relevant. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of expert witnesses. Since the turn of the century, psycholegal scholars have examined the suggestibility of children's testimony in an effort to determine whether they would be credible witnesses. A major issue in this research concerns the degree to which heightened

This thesis is about common-sense psychology and its role in cognitive science. Put simply, the argument is that common-sense psychology is important because it offers clues to some complex problems in cognitive science, and because common-sense psychology has significant effects on our intuitions, both in science and on an everyday level. The thesis develops a theory of anthropomorphism in common-sense psychology. Anthropomorphism, the natural human tendency to ascribe human characteristics (and especially human mental characteristics) to things that aren't human, is an important theme in the thesis. Anthropomorphism reveals an endemic anthropocentricity that deeply influences our thinking about other minds. The thesis then constructs a descriptive model of anthropomorphism in common-sense psychology, and uses it to analyse two studies of the ascription of mental states. The first, BaronCohen et al.'s (1985) false belief test, shows how cognitive modelling can be used to compare dif...

Four experiments compared the permanence of imagined and perceived objects. A new method for assessing object permanence in older children and adults was used that tested participants ’ preparedness to acknowledge that an object could change as a result of magical intervention. In Experiment 1, 6- and 9-year-old children and adults treated perceived and imagined objects (pieces of paper) as being equally permanent. In Experiment 2, adults treated a fantastic object (a flying dog) as significantly less permanent than either perceived or imagined objects, but children failed to distinguish between fantastic and imagined objects. Experiment 3 employed a different type of mental-physical causality (an attempt to change objects with the help of a participant’s own wish). Results were similar to those of Experiment 2. In Experiment 4, adults were tested on permanence of personally significant imagined objects (participants ’ images of their future lives). Although almost all participants claimed that they did not believe in magic, in test trials they were not prepared to rule out the possibility that their future lives could be affected by a magical curse. The results are used to explain psychological roots of magical thinking and practices. Implications of these findings for cognitive development and more specifically children’s theory of mind reasoning are discussed. Key words: object permanence, magical thinking, mental-physical causality, imaginary reality. 2

In today’s society, electronic media are thoroughly integrated into the fabric of life, with television, movies, videos, music, video games, and computers central to both work and play. Recent studies