THE LEARNING OF VERBALLY CONDITIONED MATERIAL WAS STUDIED TO CLARIFY SOME OF THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH SUCH LEARNING IS ACCOMPANIED BY THE USE OF HIGHER MENTAL PROCESSES, AND THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH IT IS NOT. THE STARTING POINT FOR THIS RESEARCH WAS THE PREMISE THAT LEARNING IN VERBAL CONDITIONING CAN OCCUR EITHER WITH OR WITHOUT AWARENESS ON…

This study compared children's dependence on situational cues by a model to their reliance on the general affective valence of the model, in order to assess the role of each in determining vicarious changes in preference. Subjects were forty 4-year-olds attending a day care center. Among five toys used in pilot testing, a box of clothespins was…

This theoretical paper deals with a comparison of the structure and content of primary and secondary thought processes. While secondary processes (cognitive thinking) are effectively dealt with and taught in schools, there is little or no relating to the primary processes (affective thinking). This is due in part to teachers' own difficulties in…

The case for integrating the problem-solving approach to learning with traditional explanatory and demonstrative approaches, but not replacing them, when teaching biology is presented. (ND)

Two studies using the concepts and research techniques of J. Piaget were conducted to compare cognitive processes in 45 blind children (2-to-12-years-old) and a random sample of sighted children. (SB)

Human infants are predisposed to organize their experience in terms of certain concepts (natural) and not others (unnatural). Three formal, necessary conditions on the naturalness of concepts are offered. The conditions attempt to link the problem of naturalness to principled distinctions between sense vs nonsense, simplicity vs complexity, and…

Young children's thinking is subject to constraints which interfere with instruction, and a developmental approach may be useful in minimizing the detrimental effects of these constraints. The approach is particularly beneficial to handicapped children, those who require remedial work, and adults with inadequate working memory for the specific…

Comments on a recent article by DeLuca on electronic "measurement of logical thinking" questioning four aspects of the article. DeLuca responds to the criticism on those four aspects in question. (GA)

Investigates the effects of high school chemistry experiences on the use of Piaget's operative structures. Reports that students who took chemistry scored higher than those who did not on a test of Piaget's operative comprehension. (GA)

A review of the research indicating that bilingual children enjoy a definite advantage in the domain of cognitive flexibility. Further, there is no basis for the belief that becoming bilingual or bicultural necessarily means a loss of identity. Application of the studies to ethnolinguistic minority groups is discussed. (AMH)

Early acquisition of right and left as absolute concepts does not seem to be related to early mastery of right and left as relative concepts among the Hausa. (Author)

The development of cognitive processes is essential to the development of reading comprehension skills. (MKM)

The use of Piaget's Displacement Volume task is shown to be a reasonably good indicator of early formal reasoning. A paper-and-pencil task is also shown effective in measuring the same stage of reasoning. (MN)

Literature suggests that females have lower initial expectancies for success than males. The antecedents of this difference are considered: (a) by examining when expectancy differences develop, and, (b) by examining cognitive factors which may underlie these differential expectancies. (Author/AM)

Rorschach protocols of both black and white children from 7 to 14 years of age, who had been evaluated at a child guidance clinic, were rescored with respect to developmental level of perceptual integration. It was found that black children had higher perceptual-integration scores in comparison to their white counterparts. (Author)