Seven main experiments and three pilot studies were conducted to develop and test theories of transfer of training in children. Initial tests failed to support an incentive model for learning and transfer, but a new model given strong emphasis to the role of context in learning was developed which accounted for a wide range of learning and…

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…

Spatial egocentrism and its relationships to discrimination ability and communicative egocentrism were investigated in a sample of 80 adult males from a single institutional setting. Significant effects of order of task presentation indicated that the experimental procedure influenced performance on the spatial and communicative egocentrism and…

Previous experiments with nursery school children have suggested that (1) subjects of preschool age do not verbalize during transfer learning or that (2) for these subjects, self-produced verbal cues have little influence on the learning process. To investigate the relative merits of these alternative positions, research was conducted among 80…