Used the Bracken Basic Concept Scale to examine whether concepts are related to each other on the conceptual development of 40 six-year-olds. Found significant correlations between the SRC concepts (color, letter, number/counting, comparison, shape) and direction as well as social/emotional concepts and the size concepts. Found that direction…

Individuals can infer what others are likely to know by clustering knowledge according to common goals, common topics, or common underlying principles. Although young children are sensitive to underlying principles, that manner of clustering might not prevail when other viable means are presented. Two studies examined how a sample of 256 children…

A label can convey nonobvious information about category membership. Three studies show that preschoolers (N144) sometimes ignore or reject labels that conflict with appearance, particularly when they are uncertain that the speaker meant to use those labels. In Study 1, 4-year-olds were more reluctant than 3-year-olds to accept that, for example,…

The aim of this study was to develop a model of students' energy concept development. Applying Case's (1985, 1992) structural theory of cognitive development, we hypothesized that students' concept of energy undergoes a series of transitions, corresponding to systematic increases in working memory capacity. The US national sample from the Third…

Collections, the referents of collective nouns, differ from classes in how membership can be determined, part-whole relationships, internal structure, and the nature of the higher order units they form. Three experiments dealt with these differences as related to the concept formation of primary school children. (BW)

Reports two experiments: 1) to determine whether children perform as adults in the simple and successive-reversal concept identification problems and to assess their retention of stimulus-response information; and 2) to determine the associative strength of the pain of response words. (Author/AJ)

Consistent age changes suggest 2 overlapping developmental dimensions: (1) The ability to deal with visible versus invisible displacements, and (2) with nonsequential versus sequential displacements. Other findings are included. (MH)

Twenty-one mentally retarded children (8- to 16-year-olds) were asked to make various types of comparisons between sets and subsets of objects. Results showed that they succeeded when the comparison involved numerically unequal subsets of objects within the same set. (Author)

Replies to commentaries by Mandler (1988) and Rochat and Striano (1988), focusing on Mandler's comments. Maintains that their disagreements are the result of deep meta-theoretical differences regarding a representational theory of mind rather than misrepresentations of fact. Discusses how their meta-theoretical differences result in several basic…

The assimilation and synthesis of knowledge is essential for students to be successful in chemistry, yet not all students synthesize knowledge as intended. The study used the Learning Preference Checklist to classify students into one of three learning modalities--visual, auditory, or kinesthetic (VAK). It also used the Kolb Learning Style…

Purpose of study was to investigate the applicability of Piaget's theory and methods to the study of conservation in nonhumans. Two out of four subject monkeys achieved stringent and statistically significant performance criteria in sameness-difference judgment tests and showed significant generalization in the fewest possible trials. (Author/SB)

Class-inclusion in first grade children was studied by using part-whole comparisons of families of stimuli (e.g., dogs). Results indicated that it was easier to make part-whole comparisons for the family relation than for the class-inclusion relation. (ST)

Children can recognize patterns much earlier than they can reconstruct them. A child cannot understand seriation in an operational sense unless he recognizes a seriated configuration. (ST)