Two experiments investigated the role of kindergarten and elementary school children's spontaneous cognitive sets in pictorial discrimination learning. Data indicated that, in comparison to the behavior of older children, the behavior of kindergarteners is governed more by the perceptible than by the conceptual attributes of stimuli. (GO)

Study supported in part by U.S. Office of Education Grant.

Two studies of 7-year-olds and college students tested the hypothesis of a developmental difference in the degree to which subjects' memory performance was controlled by categorical properties vs. specific instance properties of test items. (GO)

To clarify the roles of IQ and mental age (MA) in hypotheses behavior, MA-matched subjects at three levels of IQ and three levels of MA received blank trial discrimination learning problems using procedures designed to discourage position-oriented responding. (Author/BD)

A four choice discrimination problem was used to examine imitative behavior in children matched in mental age but differing in chronological age. The finding that older children imitated less than younger children is discussed in terms of socialization. (DP)

The question of how children represent and use comparative or partially ordered information is examined. Two experiments tested a conjecture that a common representation, a linear order, underlies the processing of all comparatives. (Author/MS)

An extension of discrimination-learning theory based on the inhibition of stimulus intensity was proposed and supported as a mechanism of cognitive development. Among 48 normal and 37 educable mentally retarded children the predominant category of transistional children conserved at a low level of stimulus intensity but failed to conserve at a…

Reports on two studies during which 6-, 8-, and 10-year-old children were interviewed about three different types of regularities or rules: social conventions, physical laws, and logical necessities. Shows that older children made more distinctions between social and nonsocial items than did younger children. (HOD)

Examines the importance of (1) dimensional characteristics of stimuli present in discrimination transfer tasks, (2) having contrasting stimuli presented simultaneously, and (3) subjects age. Subjects were rural Mexican youths, ages 4 to 10. Reversal and nonreversal type discrimination transfer problems were used in the study. (DP)

Earlier studies found that recall scores of information central to the task increased with age while incidental information recall scores remained constant. This study repeated the earlier ones modifying procedures of instructions, testing, and schedule of recall. Also, it tested the effect of labeling pictorial stimuli. The sample of 253 children…

The relation between conceptual development and visual exploratory behavior was investigated by engaging eighty-four 3-, 4-, and 8-year-old children in a picture-sorting task to determine whether they would spontaneously and readily discriminate between animate and inanimate objects. (Author/JMB)