Open research questions in Child and Animal Learning Development

What the literature leaves open

• Whether the results extend to broader classes of valuation functions—for instance, nonlinear or context-dependent evaluations—remains to be established. The practical identifiability of value spaces and persuasion matrices from finite observational data at scale remains an open problem; the model is thus more theoretically developed than empirically instantiated.

  Interpretation as Linear Transformation: A Cognitive-Geometric Model of Concepts and Meaning · 2026 · DOI

• While this study offers valuable insights into the develop- ment of children’s object-oriented play, several limitations must be acknowledged that may impact the interpretation and generalizability of the findings. First, the operationaliza- tion and coding of behaviors within OOP involves inherent interpretive decisions, which may introduce subjectivity into the measurement process. To minimize this, coder training and inter-rater reliability checks were conducted to ensure consistent coding across observers and cohorts. Second, the low frequency of mental manipulation behaviors sug- gests a possible floor effect, limiting the variance available for meaningful statistical analysis. Consequently, we were unable to examine the development of mental manipulation using mixed model regression. Observing mental manipulation is challenging, as it does not always manifest in overt behaviors and can only be distinguished when accompanied by verbal indications. To mitigate its underrepresentation, we asked children about their play session to gain insight into potential mental 1 3Early Childhood Education Journal manipulation. Although this approach did provide insights that confirmed the underrepresentation of mental manipu- lation in our data, it did not yield sufficient information to enable reliable coding of mental manipulation. Future research could explore the use of stimulated recall methods or other creative methods that allow researchers to voice young children’s ideas, to address this limitation. Another limitation to consider is the generalizability of the results. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were unable to include all participants for whom we had obtained informed consent. The childcare locations we could not visit were primarily in rural areas or neighborhoods with more diverse socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. As a result, our sample included a high percentage of children with Dutch as their first language and parents with a college or postgraduate degree, which may limit its representative- ness for the broader Dutch population (CBS, 2023). There- fore, caution is needed when generalizing our findings, as they may not fully capture differences in children’s object- oriented play that might be explained by cultural back- ground, socioeconomic status, or urban-rural disparities.

  Observing Object-oriented Play in Early Childhood: Unraveling the Complexity of Its Developmental Trajectory · 2026 · DOI

• Page 17 Public Significance Statement Young children are known to prefer native over foreign language speakers as friends and informants, but it remains unclear whether this reflects negativity toward foreign language speakers.

  Native speakers are more likeable and knowledgeable, but foreign speakers are not bad: Disentangling language-based social preferences in early childhood. · 2026 · DOI

• However, a comprehensive analysis of the impact of different parental beliefs on the spatial HLE remains lacking, leaving unanswered questions about which specific parental beliefs are most influential and whether inducing a growth mindset can enhance the spatial HLE.

  A Growth Mindset Message Leads Parents to Choose More Challenging Learning Activities · 2023 · DOI

• , 37, 2013, 1368) that alternative thinking in PP and CFR is underpinned by an imaginary representational capacity but few studies have empirically investigated this link.

  A plausible role of imagination in pretend play, counterfactual reasoning, and executive functions · 2023 · DOI

• Abstract Spontaneous imaginary companion (SIC) creation in childhood is a typical imaginative play behaviour associated with advanced sociocognitive skills; however, the direction of causality has not been established.

  ‘When my mummy and daddy aren't looking at me when I do my maths she helps me’; Children can be taught to create imaginary companions: An exploratory study · 2022 · DOI

• Existing evidence is contradictory concerning the usefulness of children’s cognitive biases for learning core concepts in evolution: These can serve as stepping stones for learning evolutionary principles, but their usefulness is questioned if children have already developed scientifically correct explanations.

  Identifying precursory concepts in evolution during early childhood – a systematic literature review · 2020 · DOI

• It is surprising that there are inconsistent findings of transitive inference (TI) in young infants given that non-linguistic species succeed on TI tests.

  Transitive inference of social dominance by human infants · 2015 · DOI

• Although findings on the early presence of prosocial tendencies in infants and toddlers have received much attention and the examination of their subsequent developmental pathways has fostered ample research, little is known about the mechanisms and motives that bring about the first emergence of these prosocial actions.

  The Emergence of Prosocial Behavior: Why Do Infants and Toddlers Help, Comfort, and Share? · 2014 · DOI

• The question is then whether the innate moral core is hypothesized to comprise additional moral concerns not yet investigated, such as the prohibition against harming others, or whether the hypothesized moral sense consists of multiple distinct tendencies, only some of which are proposed to be innate.

  Definitions and Developmental Processes in Research on Infant Morality · 2014 · DOI

• Research on gender differences in children’s theory of mind understanding reveals contradictory findings such as higher degree of social understanding or theory of mind in girls (Villaneuva Badenes, Clemente Estevan, & Garcia Bacete 2000), boys score higher than girls (Russell et al.

  Brief Report: The Role of Psychological Language in Children’S Theory of Mind and Self-Concept Development · 2014 · DOI

• Recent research suggests that even preverbal infants engage in social evaluation; however, it remains an open question whether infants' judgments are driven uniquely by an analysis of the mental states that motivate others' helpful and unhelpful actions, or whether non-mentalistic inferences are at play.

  The mentalistic basis of core social cognition: experiments in preverbal infants and a computational model · 2013 · DOI

• In addition, the review indicates that some very basic questions remain to be answered regarding how infants represent facial displays of emotion, including (a) whether infants form category representations for discrete classes of emotion, when and how such representations come(b) to incorporate affective meaning, (c) the developmental trajectory for representation of emotional expression at different levels of inclusiveness (i.

  Looking Across Domains to Understand Infant Representation of Emotion · 2011 · DOI

• Although dual‐representation might account for these misattributions of the properties of 2D images, because children also performed better when two 2D images of the same object were present, other possibilities such as children using pictures as communicative devices and disregarding the pragmatics of the task should be explored.

  An investigation of preschoolers' misattributions of the properties of two‐dimensional images: understanding the relationship between a symbol and its referent · 2010 · DOI

• The change from sensory to conceptual responding that language training appears to induce in the chimpanzee thus resembles a developmental transition that normal children undergo in the ‘natural’ course of things – though whether the two changes are genuinely comparable is one of several ontogenetic questions that remain to be answered.

  Possible General Effects of Language Training on the Chimpanzee · 2009 · DOI

• The diagnosis of specific language impairment (SLI) requires non-verbal ability to be in the normal range, but little is known regarding the extent to which general reasoning skills are preserved during development.

  Deductive reasoning in children with specific language impairment · 2009 · DOI

• Do infants explicitly recognize feelings and emotions in themselves and others? What would preverbal children say about internal states if they had the words? Investigation of infants' emotional understanding is limited by the challenge of understanding infant mental states before the onset of speech.

  Signs of emotion: What can preverbal children “say” about internal states? · 2008 · DOI

• Several studies have demonstrated a relation between executive functioning (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) in preschoolers, yet the developmental course of this relation remains unknown.

  Executive Function and Theory of Mind: Stability and Prediction From Ages 2 to 3. · 2004 · DOI

• Finally, we consider what progress has been made so far in the fractionation of EF into component processes, and what remains to be done to achieve this important goal.

  Measuring Executive Functions in Childhood: Problems and Solutions? · 2002 · DOI

• Analysis of pairing responses and justifications showed that 3‐ and 4‐ year‐old children have a limited knowledge of the inheritance and invariance of such racial characteristics, whereas 5‐ and 6‐year‐old children display more consolidated knowledge and coherent responding across the different tasks.

  Understanding constraints on inheritance: Evidence for biological thinking in early childhood · 2002 · DOI

• The main goal of this study was to examine developmental trends in the accuracy of feeling-ofknowing (FOK) judgements given that previous work in this issue had yielded inconsistent results.

  Developmental trends in children’s feeling-of-knowing judgements · 2002 · DOI

• , Commons & Nevin, 1981) in that the assumptions are explicit and the measures of performance are quantitatively describable; neither are they limited by the earlier forays into quantification such as those of Hull (1943; 1952) or Piaget ( Inhelder & Piaget, 1958; Piaget, 1954; Piaget, 1976; Piaget & Inhelder, with Sinclair-de Zwart, 1973).

  A quantitative behavioral model of developmental stage based upon the model of hierarchical complexity. · 2001 · DOI

• The findings are inconsistent with early competence proposals that claim that developmental changes are due to tasks artifacts, and thus disappear in simpler, revised false-belief tasks; and are, instead, consistent with theoretical accounts that propose that understanding of belief, and, relatedly, understanding of mind, exhibit genuine conceptual change in the preschool years.

  Meta-Analysis of Theory-of-Mind Development: The Truth about False Belief · 2001 · DOI

• The ability to recall features of environments not present to the senses is important in human thinking, planning, and communication, but to date there are almost no data on recall capabilities in nonverbal animals.

  Unprompted recall and reporting of hidden objects by a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) after extended delays. · 1999 · DOI

• Although folktales vary widely from one culture to the next, no culture has been reported in which folktales play no role whatever or where the story line of existing folktales does not have some form of intentional component (Propp, 1922/1968).

  VI. CROSS-CULTURAL INVESTIGATIONS · 1996 · DOI

Most-cited papers in Child and Animal Learning Development

• Meta-Analysis of Theory-of-Mind Development: The Truth about False Belief · Child Development · 2001 · 2,816 citations
• Executive function in preschoolers: A review using an integrative framework. · Psychological Bulletin · 2008 · 1,947 citations
• Do humans have two systems to track beliefs and belief-like states? · Psychological Review · 2009 · 813 citations
• The impact of pretend play on children's development: A review of the evidence. · Psychological Bulletin · 2012 · 628 citations
• Cognition, Metacognition, and Epistemic Cognition · Human Development · 2009 · 494 citations
• Executive Function and Theory of Mind: Stability and Prediction From Ages 2 to 3. · Developmental Psychology · 2004 · 477 citations
• From Social Interaction to Higher Psychological Processes. A Clarification and Application of Vygotsky’s Theory · Human Development · 2009 · 445 citations
• Imitation in newborn infants: Exploring the range of gestures imitated and the underlying mechanisms. · Developmental Psychology · 1989 · 420 citations
• Theory of mind and prosocial behavior in childhood: A meta-analytic review. · Developmental Psychology · 2016 · 354 citations
• Serious fun: Preschoolers engage in more exploratory play when evidence is confounded. · Developmental Psychology · 2007 · 311 citations

Most recent work

• Reject All Splits: Revisiting Dynamic, Relational Developmental Systems-Based Approaches to Conceptualizing Quantitative and Qualitative Changes in Human Development · Human Development · 2026
• Predicting infant social attention: The role of temperament and mother-child interaction · Infant Behavior and Development · 2026
• SERA: Self-referential assessment framework for bidirectional generative commonsense reasoning · Knowledge-Based Systems · 2026
• Winnicott and the Pattern of Being · The Psychoanalytic Quarterly · 2026
• Relations Between the Development of False Belief and Scientific Reasoning in Turkish Preschoolers · Infant and Child Development · 2026
• Serve-return-rally-learn: extending the serve and return metaphor in adult–child interactions · Child Development Perspectives · 2026
• Overcoming the dyadic default in research on child development · Child Development Perspectives · 2026
• Understanding “Society” is More Than Summing up the Folks I Know: Individual Development of a Concept of Generalized Other Minds · International Journal of Developmental Science · 2026
• Excess Capacity Learning · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · 2026
• Children’s Mental Representations of Artificial Intelligence: Insights from 4th and 8th Graders · International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction · 2026

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