Two experiments investigated the role of children's spontaneous conceptual "biases" in pictorial discrimination learning. The results suggested that such biases may serve either to facilitate or to interfere with discrimination learning. Moreover, in each experiment, age by treatment interactions revealed that in comparison to the behavior of…

Analyzed is the Piagetian concept of cognitive structure (concerning an individual's thought organization) and noted is the lack of precise psychological definition. Reviewed are deficiencies in Piaget's theories relating to developmental stages of the cognitive structure. Elements of the cognitive structure are defined; five basic assumptions are…

The concern here is with kinds of cognitive structures individuals use in making major life choices upon which subsequent development depends. The system conceptualized for describing these psychological processes, pictures each choice domain (such as occupations) as a set of concentric squares. The outermost square deals with total knowledge of…

In this essay, research done on concept learning is discussed. The study analyzes concept learning as one form of learning, formulating guidelines for teaching concepts, and describes the abilities underlying the attainment of concepts. An analytical model is presented; various operations such as concrete concepts and identity concepts are…

The author explores some germane implications of cognitive consistency theory. An "affective-cognitive consistency" theory, which specifies the relationship between the affective and cognitive components of the attitude structure, was taken as the theoretical basis of this study. The theory suggests that by knowing what a person values, it should…

The purpose of this project was to develop new information and analyses that would contribute to development of a systematic understanding of cognitive structure, including its acquisition and utilization during problem solving. Experimental and theoretical work was done on three specific problems. (1) Studies of individual differences and effects…

This study investigates acquisition of two aspects of the meaning of color terms: semantic organization and reference. A longitudinal, repeated measure design was used, and data were collected from 33 subjects, 2 to 4 years old at first testing. Four tasks were used: one to assess semantic organization (the acquisition of the…

Analyzes selected aspects of Piaget's theory of cognitive development and offers guidelines for primary social studies curricula based on the analysis. (CM)

Borrowing freely from Freud, Piaget, and others, this article compares and integrates primary (emotional) and secondary (intellectual) process according to seven distinct but overlapping structures: (1) weight; (2) pathways; (3) time and space; (4) operational dialectic; (5) sources of energy; (6) morality; and (7) historical antecedents. Primary…

Describes children's reactions to chance and probability in a variety of experimental situations, using four different experiments from Piaget's work, to give a clearer picture of how children approach these ideas. (GA)

Discusses Novak's views that Ausubel's meaningful learning can become an alternative to Piagetian psychology and argues that Ausubel does not provide a theory that can be an alternative to Piaget's developmental psychology. (HM)

Recommendations for teaching problem solving stem from a discussion of the differences in the functioning of the left and right hemispheres of a person's brain. (JT)

Provides a list of 27 cognitive objectives that are applicable to preschool and early childhood years. Relates elements of the list to the classification systems of Bloom, Gagne, and Briggs. (RL)

Discusses the inadequacies of the linguistic development theory called cognitive determinism and suggests instead the linguistic input hypothesis. Concludes that it is not either cognitive development or linguistic input that determines linguistic growth, but an interaction between them. (RM)

Visual, name and conceptual encoding of pictures were studied using a recognition memory task in which 4-, 8-, and 16-year-olds quickly decided whether or not pictures were identical to remembered study pictures. (SB)