Bazelon writes that Schulz's research on early childhood learning indicates that "Most of the time, when children have a choice between a toy they've already played with and a new toy, they pick the new one. But if the toy they've already played with doesn't work the way they expect it to, they 'break their novelty preference,' . . . and keep playing with it—evidence that they're intrigued and exploring."

I don't understand what "breakiing the novelty preference" means here. Wouldn't the better interpretation be that children always keep their novelty preference? When an old toy is modified to work in a new way it essentially becomes a new toy from the perspective of novelty. There is no incentive to switch to a truly new toy until the novelty of the modified old toy wears off. It doesn't seem as if the novelty preference is ever broken; rather, it is always maintained if you accept a more general (and I think more accurate) definition of the novelty preference.

One explanation is that after they're given the weird-acting toy, they're offered another, but continue to play with the weird one, when normally they would choose the new toy.

posty:

One explanation is that after they're given the weird-acting toy, they're offered another, but continue to play with the weird one, when normally they would choose the new toy.

Well, all I'm saying is that you have to be very careful about how you define things. It seems that a child who is playing with a toy won't accept a new toy until he (or she) gets tired of playing with it (when the novelty wears off). If you give a child a "weird acting" toy, then it is essentially a "new toy" so presumably he wouldn't choose a new toy until he got tired of that one too.

For example, say that a child gets tired of playing with any toy after 10 minutes. If you present a child with Toy A, then presumably he will accept new Toy B after 10 minutes of playing with Toy A. If instead you present a child with Toy A, wait 10 minutes, and then present the child with "weird Toy A," then maybe it's reasonable to assume that the child will play with "weird Toy A" for another 10 minutes before moving on to new Toy B. I wouldn't conclude that the child has "broken the novelty preference" just because he played with some version of Toy A for 20 minutes before moving on to Toy B when he ordinarily would have played with Toy A for only 10 minutes before moving on to Toy B. Getting a "weird" toy is like getting a new toy.

Now, if the authors are contending that on average children play with "weird" toys for longer amounts of time on average before moving on to other types of toys, then that's an interesting result. It's not at all clear to me from reading the Slate article that this is the case, however. Furthermore, you have to be careful about comparing apples to oranges (the novelty of a "weird" block versus that of an "ordinary" ball, etc.).

Transformers. It's a truck! play play play. It's a robot! play play play. When it's a truck, it's new for a little while. When it's a robot, it's new again. The in between stage counts as still a third new thing. Have you ever watcheed a kid with a big Swiss Army Knife? That's a couple of days worth of new right there.