OBJECTIVE We hypothesized that the physiques of male action toys--small plastic figures used by children in play--would provide some index of evolving American cultural ideals of male body image. METHOD We obtained examples of the most popular American action toys manufactured over the last 30 years. We then measured the waist, chest, and bicep circumference of each figure and scaled these me...

The vocalizations and jaw kinematics of 30 infants aged 6-8 months were recorded using a Motion Analysis System and audiovisual technologies. This study represents the first attempt to determine the effect of play environment on infants' rate of vocalization and jaw movement. Four play conditions were compared: watching videos, social contingent reinforcement and vocal modeling with an adult, p...

The second year of life sees dramatic developments in infants' ability to understand emotions in adults alongside their growing interest in peers. In this study, the authors used a social-referencing paradigm to examine whether 12-, 18-, and 24-month-old children could use a peer's positive or negative emotion messages about toys to regulate their own behavior with the toys. They found that 12-...

Parents of young children will tell you that boys like different toys than girls; they are intrigued by Bob the Builder, Transformers of all kinds, trucks, police cars, front loaders, bikes, skate boards, and wagons. Girls too like bikes, cars and Legos, but also play with stuffed animals and dolls, toys that boys find less appealing for active play. Is this difference in toy preference due exc...

Do young children form "referential pacts"? If a person has referred to an object with a certain term (e.g., the horse), will children expect this person to use this term in the future but allow others to use a different expression (e.g., the pony)? One hundred twenty-eight children between 3 and 5 years old co-operated with an experimenter (E1) to move toys to new locations on a shelf. E1 esta...

BACKGROUND Previous research has demonstrated the capacity of animal presence to stimulate social interaction among humans. The purpose of this study was to examine the interactions of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with an adult and their typically-developing peers in the presence of animals (two guinea pigs) compared to toys. METHODS Ninety-nine children from 15 classrooms in ...