Critical Thinking Questions

1. Why is it useful for people to organize categories into hierarchies, such as animal/dog/poodle or vehicle/car/Prius?
2. Did you have an imaginary companion as a child or know someone who did? What functions did the invisible friend serve, and why do you think that you or the other person stopped imagining the companion?
3. Why do you think 5-year-olds are so much better at false-belief problems than 3-year-olds are?
4. Self-produced movement enhances children’s representation of space. What evolutionary purpose might this serve?
5. Describe the thoughts that might go through a 5-year-old’s mind when the child sees two Santa Clauses walking past each other.
6. Do you think infants possess a basic understanding of arithmetic? Why or why not?
7. Why might it be useful for children to have a general representation of quantity, as well as specific representations of space, time, and number?