The science of cognitive development is divisible into two broad fields of inquiry: (a) the ontogenesis of basic processes and capabilities (e.g., attention, memory, processing speed, inhibition) that support higher reasoning and (b) the ontogenesis of types of higher reasoning (e.g., decision making, deductive inference, judgment, problem solving). The paradigms that are central to research in the two fields are quite different, of course (e.g., free recall vs. mathematical problem solving),...
