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.).