consisted of 16 children (11 boys and 5 girls). They ranged in age from 3 years 5 months to 5 years 6 months. The mean age was 4 years 6 months. Experiment 3 procedures In experiment 3 all of the conditions and procedures were the same as in experiment 1 and experiment 2, except that the reward items were not visible to the children while they waited. In the previous experiments both of the reward objects were directly available to the children while they waited in the delay period. To achieve this change in condition the children were told that the food items needed to be kept fresh. The marshmallow and pretzel stick were then placed under the opaque cake tin and put under the table out of sight of the child. In this experiment the same "think food rewards" were given to the children as in experiment 2. Overall results The three separate experiments demonstrate a number of significant findings. The effective delay of gratification depends heavily on the cognitive avoidance or suppression of the reward objects while waiting for them to be delivered. Additionally, when the children thought about the absent rewards, it was just as difficult to delay gratification as when the reward items were directly in front of them. Conversely, when the children in the experiment waited for the reward and it was not visibly present, they were able to wait longer and attain the preferred reward. The Stanford marshmallow experiment is important because it demonstrated that effective delay is not achieved by merely thinking about something other than what we want, but rather, it depends on suppressive and avoidance mechanisms that reduce frustration. The frustration of waiting for a desired reward is demonstrated nicely by the authors when describing the behavior of the children. "They made up quiet songs...hid their head in their arms, pounded the floor with their feet, fiddled playfully and teasingly with the signal bell, verbalized the contingency...prayed to the ceiling, and so on. In one dramatically effective self-distraction technique, after obviously experiencing much agitation, a little girl rested her head, sat limply, relaxed herself, and proceeded to fall sound asleep." Follow-up studies In follow-up studies, Mischel found unexpected correlations between the results of the marshmallow experiment and the success of the children many years later. The first follow-up study, in 1988, showed that "preschool children who delayed gratification longer in the