Four kinds of understanding of mathematics are suggested: instrumental, relational, intuitive, and formal. Each type of understanding is described and illustrated. (MN)

Discusses a conditioning exercise used in an undergraduate psychology classroom. Students are to shape their professor's behavior by using operant conditioning procedures. Reports favorable student reaction to assignment. Notes that class size influences success and relates anecdotes in order to illustrate obstacles to the completion of the…

A theory of discrimination which assumes that subjects compare psychological values evoked by a stimulus to a subjective referent is proposed. For a related article, see TM 501 716. (Author/RC)

Chapters contained in this volume, each with a list of references appended, are: "Scientific Psychology in Transition" by Gregory A. Kimble; "Higher Mental Processes as the Bases for the Laws of Conditioning" by Eli Saltz; "Reification and Reality in Conditioning Paradigms: Implications of Results When Modes of Reinforcement are Changed" by David…

Discusses the controversy concerning language learning theories as epitomized by Chomsky and Skinner, and concludes that heredity and experience are equally important in language acquisition. (DD)

Five children with autism and mental retardation learned to discriminate objects in response to spoken names or to match amounts to numbers with a combined blocking procedure. The procedure involved presenting the same spoken word until 10 consecutive correct responses occurred and keeping the left-right location of objects constant. (Contains…

Imaginal perspective switches are often considered to be difficult, because they call for additional cognitive transformations of object coordinates (transformation hypothesis). Recent research suggests that problems can also result from conflicts between incompatible sensorimotor and cognitive object location codes during response specification…

Investigates memory storage and molecular nature of associative-memory formation by analyzing Pavlovian conditioning in marine snails and rabbits. Presented is the design of a computer-based memory system (neural networks) using the rules acquired in the investigation. Reports that the artificial network recognized patterns well. (YP)

Studies on human and animals shed light on the unique hippocampus contributions to relational memory. However, the particular role of each hippocampal subregion in memory processing is still not clear. Hippocampal computational models and theories have emphasized a unique function in memory for each hippocampal subregion, with the CA3 area acting…