During the past two decades, a renewed interest in children's cognitive devel opment has stimulated numerous research activities that have been summarized in hundreds of books. In our view, the field of memory development provides a particularly nice example of the progress that has been made so far. Since John Flavell's landmark symposium on "What Is Memory Development the Development of?" in 1971, the question of what develops has been addressed in different ways, yielding a rather complex pattern of findings. A closer look at current research outcomes reveals that ways of describing and explaining de velopmental changes in memory performance have changed considerably during the past 20 years. That is, while individual differences in the use of cognitive strategies were conceived of as the most important predictors of individual dif ferences in memory performance in the 1970s, the crucial role of knowledge has been demonstrated in research conducted in the 1980s. More recent studies have repeatedly emphasized that neither changes in strategies nor knowledge alone is sufficient to explain general patterns of memory development: Here the claim is that strategies ahd different forms of knowledge (e. g. , world knowl edge, domain knowledge, or metacognitive knowledge) interact in rather com plex ways to achieve successful memory performance. We believe that this claim can be generalized to different fields dealing with intelligent information processing.

Der lange vernachlassigte Willensbegriff wird gegenwartig in einigen Humanwissenschaften, vor allem in der Psychologie und Hirnphysiologie neu aufgegriffen. Dieser Band soll dazu beitragen, die alltagliche Erfahrungsvielfalt des Wollens wieder als einen Forschungsgegenstand aller Humanwissenschaften zu entdecken. Der erste Abschnitt behandelt das Wollen als einen Gegenstand vielfaltiger Erfahrung, sei es in Gestalt geschichtlicher Ereignisse oder literarischer Zeugnisse, im Experiment oder schliesslich im Spiegel bildhafter Vorstellungen. Die weiteren Abschnitte beschaftigen sich mit der Vorstellung vom Wollen in der Antike, der Philosophie des Willens sowie der Geschichte der Willenspsychologie. Neuansatze einer psychologischen Willenstheorie betreffen das Bilden von Absichten und ein vornahmegeleitetes Handeln ("Rubikon-Modell"). Abschliessend werden padagogische, psychotherapeutische, strafrechtliche, evolutionsbiologische und hirnphysiologische Forschungsansatze skizziert und diskutiert."

This book describes the findings of a longitudinal study conducted with about 200 children from 1984 to 1993. Children were recruited for the study when they had just entered kindergarten at the age of about 4 years. The study aimed to investigate changes in cognitive, social, and personality development over the preschool and elementary school years. One of the unique features of this longitudinal study is that relationships and interactions among cognitive, social, and personality development could be assessed based on the data of a representative sample of children. Researchers in developmental psychology and child development will find much pertinent information in this volume.

This book describes the findings of a longitudinal study conducted with about 200 children from 1984 to 1993. Children were recruited for the study when they had just entered kindergarten at the age of about 4 years. The study aimed to investigate changes in cognitive, social, and personality development over the preschool and elementary school years. One of the unique features of this longitudinal study is that relationships and interactions among cognitive, social, and personality development could be assessed based on the data of a representative sample of children.