The major areas of concern in this paper are the information and aesthetical impacts of artwork on the human mind, and the modes, structures, and media of artwork which influence the formulation of aesthetical impact. The analysis of aesthetical information impact follows current discoveries in the disciplines of biocybernetics, system and…

Witkin's concepts of field dependence-independence and restructing are discussed with reference to studies in Russia and in the Netherlands. These concepts are related to differences in style of perception and to success on both cognitive tasks and social tasks. It is suggested that restructing abilities may be trained and restructing ability may…

SCIENCE UNITS CONSTRUCTED TO DIRECTLY TEACH CRITICAL THINKING ARE COMPARED WITH CONVENTIONAL SCIENCE UNITS FOR EFFECTIVENESS IN THE TEACHING OF CRITICAL THINKING. THE SAMPLE INCLUDED 1,554 FOURTH, FIFTH, AND SIXTH GRADE STUDENTS TAUGHT BY 65 TEACHERS IN FIVE DIFFERENT SCHOOL SYSTEMS. TEACHERS OF THE 469 STUDENTS IN THE RESEARCH GROUP WERE…

This monograph examines reading as a cognitive process, focusing on the relationship between reading and thinking as developed in Piagetian theory. Sections of the paper provide a brief overview of Piagetian theory, pointing out its relevance for reading; examine correlational, comparative, and perceptual studies of the relationship between…

Three studies were conducted with three groups of eighteen autistic children (3-11 years old) matched by age and IQ to developmental aphasic Ss to examine the nature of the cognitive deficit underlying autism. Two experiments were concerned with language comprehension using real and anomalous sentences, while the third investigation was an…

Two Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) approaches to teaching high school biology were employed to study the relative effects which different curriculum approaches might have on certain intellectual aptitudes of students. Subjects included 144 students enrolled in the BSCS Yellow Version and 143 students enrolled in BSCS Blue Version.…

Over the years, teacher questions have consistently aimed at literal comprehension, indicating that teachers lack understanding of the reading-thinking-questioning hierarchy. Benjamin Bloom's "Cognitive Taxonomy" can serve as a hierarchical framework for the design of questions. Within this framework, a teacher can confront decision…

This book, containing conference papers and a summary of activities, focuses on the contributions which current research in cognitive psychology can make to the solution of problems in instructional design. The first three parts of the book include sets of research contributions followed by discussions: part one deals with different strategies for…

The primary purpose of this study was to determine empirically whether an individual's cognitive style differentially influences his hypothesizing behavior within a relatively simple information processing task. A characteristic of cognitive style explored is the manner in which an individual perceives and analyzes a stimulus configuration;…

The concept of "structure" is discussed in connection with the biological and psychological sciences and shown, through a short historical analysis, to have been subject to imprecise use. The recent "structuralist movement" in the social sciences has also tended to cloud the meaning of structure rather than to clarify it. Using…

The present study was conducted to demonstrate the power of imagery instructional sets to improve the recall of units more complex than in the traditional paired associate (P-A) paradigm and to evaluate imagery as a memory organizer. Forty-eight sixth grade children were randomly assigned to one of four experimental conditions, defined by the…

To determine the effects of instruction in general semantics on the critical thinking of secondary students, 104 tenth- and eleventh-grade students in control and experimental groups completed the "Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal" test before and after the 12-week teaching period, in which two teachers spent 1 hour per week in the…

A preschool curriculum for lower class children was developed based on Piaget's theory. Evaluation procedures were developed to parallel a Piagetian curriculum. According to Piagetian theory, the mechanism of classification is the coordination of the intensive and extensive properties of a group of objects. The ability to dichotomously classify…

This paper comments on the thesis that cognitive style and affective reaction variables ought to be taken into account in the evaluation of instruction. Observations are expressed as questions relating to cognitive style: Which style is it better for an individual to have? Can cognitive style be adapted to fit a particular learning task? Can it be…

It was hypothesized that by age 8 children would manifest an adult meaning system, and that 5-year-old children would not. An adult meaning system allows an adult to transcend component word meanings and integrate, in the presence of a speaker, the underdetermined and the factual proposition into a meaningful whole. Subjects were 60 5- and…