Reports three experiments conducted to investigate factors controlling performance of nonreinforced verbal imitation. (WY)

Three groups of severely retarded and three groups of mildly retarded individuals responded to a series of five 10-trial oddity problems under nonreward conditions. Results suggest that oddity is a stimulus characteristic to which an approach response is made, independent of its concurrent association with reward, and that stimulus value of oddity…

Two experiments show that response to explicit dimensions is not crucial to the change from easier nonreversal to easier reversal shifts during overlearning in grammar school children ages 7, 8, and 9. (WY)

Two groups of kindergarten children received stimulus differentiation training either with feedback (experimental Ss) or without (controls), prior to presentation of a series of discrimination-learning problems using blank-trial probes. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical perspectives derived from Piagetian theory and developmental…

The stimulus-familiarization-effect (SFE) paradigm, a reaction-time (RT) task based on a response to novelty procedure, was modified to assess response for novelty, ie., a response-reinforcement sequence. The potential implications of attention for reinforcement theory and learning in general are discussed. (Author/CS)

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…

Purpose of the present experiment was to compare performance of four- and six-year-olds on a conjunctive concept task in which the two relevant values were either within a single dimension (unidimensional) or from two different dimensions (bidimensional). (Authors)

Infants of 6 months and older can be said to have discriminated between different orientations of the same form. (Author)

The results of three experiments involving 6 young children suggest that the generalized imitation effect may not be entirely due to the child's inability to discriminate reinforced fron nonreinforced occasions. Instructional and social variables may strongly influence the generalized imitation effect. (WY)

Children's avoidance responses were conditioned and then extinguished in a laboratory analog of a social threat situation. (DP)

Fifteen autistic and 15 normal Ss were trained to respond to a card containing two visual cues. The children were further tested on the single cues in order to assess whether one or both stimuli had acquired control over their responding. (Editor/RK)

Presents two experiments which examined: (1) the tendency to make differential cue-producing responses to the values of dimensions that vary within or between settings; and (2) the hypothesis that children have more experience with problems following a two-choice simultaneous discrimination format than a successive one. Subjects were third- and…

Investigates third- and fourth-grade children's verbal evaluations of syllables paired with different reward schedules (full, partial, or none) for "pleasantness" and "curiosity." (Author/ED)