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The neural representation of visual‐spatial functions has traditionally been ascribed to the right hemisphere, but little is known about these representations in children, including whether and how lateralization of function changes over the course of development. Some studies suggest bilateral activation early in life that develops toward right‐lateralization in adulthood, while others find evidence of right‐hemispheric dominance in both children and adults. We used a complex visual‐spatial construction task to examine the nature of lateralization and its developmental time course in children ages 5–11 years. Participants were shown two puzzle pieces and were asked whether the pieces could fit together to make a square; responses required either mental translation of the pieces (Translation condition) or both mental translation and rotation of the pieces (Rotation condition). Both conditions were compared to a matched Luminance control condition that was similar in terms of visual content and difficulty but required no spatial analysis. Group and single‐subject analyses revealed that the Rotation and Translation conditions elicited strongly bilateral activation in the same parietal and occipital locations as have been previously found for adults. These findings show that visual‐spatial construction consistently elicits robust bilateral activation from age 5 through adulthood. This challenges the idea that spatial functions are all right‐lateralized, either during early development or in adulthood. More generally, these findings provide insights into the developmental course of lateralization across different spatial skills and how this may be influenced by the computational requirements of the particular functions involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many studies proposed that infants' and adults' looking behavior suggest a spontaneous and implicit ability to reason about others' beliefs. It has been argued, however, that these successes are false positives due to domain‐general processes, such as retroactive interference. In this study, we investigated the domain specificity of mechanisms underpinning participants' looking behavior by manipulating the dynamic cues in the event stimuli. Infants aged 15 and 20 months and adults saw animation events in which either a self‐moving triangle, or a hand holding an identical inert triangle, chased an animated disk. Most 20‐month‐olds and adults showed belief congruent anticipatory looks in the agent‐triangle condition, whereas they showed no bias in the inert triangle control condition. These results are not consistent with submentalizing accounts based on domain‐general low‐level processes and provide further support for domain‐specific explanations positing an early‐emerging mentalistic reasoning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background This study aimed to identify the mathematical domains affected in adults with neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1) and the impact of the numerical difficulties on the patients' activities of daily living. Methods We assessed 28 adult patients with NF1 and 28 healthy control participants. All participants completed the standardised battery of numerical activities of daily living along with clinical batteries of cognitive (Mini-Mental State Examination) and daily functioning (instrumental activities of daily living). The group comparisons of the performance on numerical activities of daily living were carried out using t-test correcting for multiple comparisons. Results The results showed that the NF1 group performed worse than controls in written subtractions, written multiplication, multiplication principles and digit comprehension (dot counting) tasks. Importantly, no significant differences in numerical ecological tasks were found between patients and controls, suggesting a possible use of compensatory strategies in daily living abilities in spite of calculation deficits. Conclusion The findings indicate that NF1 affects calculation but not the basic comprehension or representation of numbers in adult patients. These data have important implications for designing cognitive interventions tailored to the cognitive profile of individuals with NF1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]