Looking ahead: Children’s inferences from picture books

The ability to create and update mental models of story events as they unfold is essential for narrative comprehension. Previous research shows that by 2.5 years of age, children can update their mental representations of object properties and location when given explicit verbal information. It is currently not known whether children of this age can update their mental models using implicit information, such as statements or images that afford predictive inferences. By manipulating picture-text encoding conditions, the present research investigates 23- to 30-month-old children’s ability to update their mental representations by drawing inferences from a picture book. It is possible that the process of actively constructing a mental model via an inferencing process will facilitate children’s performance. However, it is also possible that the cognitive processing costs of this process will hinder children’s mental updating