Preschool children were presented with slides on a computer screen showing a novel object, together with two informants, one with an attractive and one with a less attractive face. Children were asked which informant they would like to ask about the name of the novel object. After hearing the informants provide conflicting names, they were asked who they thought was correct. Children were more likely to endorse names provided by the person with the more attractive face, a bias that cannot be justified on epistemic grounds. The implications of this finding are discussed.

Piaget's body of work had two major theoretical thrusts: constructivism and stage theory. Both constructivism and stage theories articulate modern work on conceptual development, albeit transformed by developments in cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience. A case study of conceptual change in childhood within a framework theory of intuitive biology illustrates these points.

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