The Day/Night Stroop is a widely used measure of inhibitory control with preschoolers that requires them to respond ‘day’ to a picture of a moon and ‘night’ to a picture of a sun (Gerstadt, Hong, & Diamond, 1994). However, we argue that the nature of the relation between the stimuli and required responses requires more than inhibitory control. In the present study we compared 51 three‐ to five‐year‐olds' performance on the Day/Night and the Black/White Stroop alongside other measures of Executive Function and language. As predicted, we found that children make inhibitory errors on the Black/White, while they make both inhibitory and memory errors on the Day/Night. As a result, the Day/Night Stroop underestimates the inhibitory control abilities of some children. Further, we also found that performance on the Black/White task was strongly related to performance on another inhibitory control task, while performance on the Day/Night was not. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Symbols are used regularly in our daily lives, but in order for a symbol to serve its intended purpose, its meaning must be conveyed in some way (Myers & Liben, 2012).Across two studies, this research examined 4-to 6-year-olds' understanding of how the relations between symbols and their referents are effectively conveyed using legends. To investigate this issue, a novel task was developed in which it was necessary to convey the arbitrary correspondence between symbols (the shapes on top of a set of boxes) and a set of referents (cards with shapes on them), so that an unknowing other would know which card went inside each box. Study One was an investigation of children's ability to evaluate legends that either effectively or ineffectively conveyed symbol-referent relations. Children's performance was examined in relation to age, the ability to detect ambiguity (Ambiguous Messages and Droodle tasks), and Executive Function skills (Inhibitory Control, Working Memory, Planning tasks). The results provide evidence that both the ability to detect ambiguity and Executive Function uniquely relate to children's ability to evaluate legends. Study Two investigated a new group of children's ability to create a legend to convey symbol-referent pairs, in relation to the same cognitive skills considered in StudyOne. In addition, to examine the impact of exposure to effective legends, half of the children who did not create an effective legend were then presented with legends created by the experimenter, while the other half served as the baseline group. Children who received this exposure, relative to those in the baseline group, significantly improved their legend creations and transferred this improvement to a new set of stimuli. This iii study found evidence that ambiguity detection was related both to legend creation on children's first attempt, and children's ability to improve following exposure. However, Executive Function performance did not relate to legend production. Taken together, these studies provide insight on factors that relate to children's developing understanding of how symbol meanings are effectively conveyed, and argue for the important role of being able to detect ambiguity.iv

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