This study sought to determine the accuracy of an assessment format in which selection outcomes were delayed and probabilistic; these are unavoidable features of an assessment designed to determine preferences of multiple children simultaneously. During the single arrangement, preference hierarchies were established by having a child repeatedly…

A complete quantitative account of P. Wason's (1966) abstract selection task is proposed. The account takes the form of a mathematical model. It is assumed that some response patterns are caused by inferential reasoning, whereas other responses reflect cognitive processes that affect each card selection separately and independently of other card…

The current article examines patterns of adult responding to different types of more-than and less-than relations, as well as procedures for facilitating responding in accordance with these relations. Using parameters suggested in the three-term series literature, the more-than and less-than relations were separated into six distinct trial types.…

A paradox in studying sensory perception is that people often attend to a stimulus which provides the least optimal information. Usually, this is a visual stimulus. The study sought to lessen this reliance on vision by training subjects to respond to proprioceptive stimuli. Results are discussed. (Author/JL)

Investigated simultaneous occurrence of emergent stimulus-response relations (functional equivalence) and stimulus-stimulus relations (stimulus equivalence). Trained 4- and 5-year olds to emit specified responses to pairs of stimuli in one setting (original training) and to emit other responses to one member of each pair in another setting…

This research examined the role the two constituents of joint control, the tact and the echoic, play in producing accurate selections of novel stimuli in response to their spoken descriptions. Experiment 1 examined the role of tacts. In response to unfamiliar spoken descriptions, children learned to select from among six successively presented…

Whisker deflection is an effective conditioned stimulus (CS) for trace eyeblink conditioning that has been shown to induce a learning-specific expansion of whisker-related cortical barrels, suggesting that memory storage for an aspect of the trace association resides in barrel cortex. To examine the role of the barrel cortex in acquisition and…

Mothers of 48 infants approximately 12 months old displayed either positive or neutral affect while their infants responded to pleasant, ambiguous, or aversive toys. On the first trial maternal affect had no effect; on the second trial, positive maternal affect resulted in more positive infant responses, but only for the ambiguous toy. (Author/RH)

The classifying behavior of five-year-old children and adults was examined in two studies of restricted classification using triads of stimuli composed of the dimensions of length and density. Results were consistent with the notion of separable perception for adults and integral perception for children. (Author/SS)

When college students attempted to integrate multiple cues into a single value judgment, the resulting cognitive load did not simplify cue-judgment relationships. Cue values were translated into judgment-relevant subjective values before integration. Findings support the information integration theory. (Author/CP)

Hearing-impaired 6- to 13-year-olds (N=24), trained to discriminate between two stimulus complexes differing in shape, direction, and number, were asked to discriminate between individual characteristics in all possible pair combinations. General failure to respond to all characteristics equally suggested that hearing-impaired children tend to be…

Investigates the effect of a recorded male human voice on neonate head, eye, mouth and crying behaviors. Vocal Stimulation enhanced head movement, eye opening, mouthing and crying and influenced hand sucking. Differences between breast fed and bottle fed babies were found for mouth orientation, hand sucking and crying. (RH)

Children and adults were trained and tested on formation of novel simple discriminations and conditional stimulus relations. Subjects who formed these sets were trained and tested on formation of stimulus equivalence classes. A modest majority of children matched directly paired stimuli; a few matched indirectly paired stimuli. All normal adults…

Research suggests that while information about design is a central feature of older children's artifact representations it may be less important in the artifact representations of younger children. Three experiments explore the pattern of responses that 5- and 7-year-old children generate when asked to produce multiple uses for familiar…

Signal detection theory as a framework for interpreting concept acquisition was studied in three experiments involving preschool children. Results of the studies suggest that juxtaposition of minimally different examples is superior to exclusively positive sequences, and consistent instructions are superior to varied instructions. (Author/JN)