The addition of idiosyncratic features to individual members of an artificially constructed category enhanced specific item memory among 13 month olds, but not among 10 month olds. Discussion of findings focuses on their theoretical implications and the nature of the age difference. (RH)

Makes reference to a logic table introduced in the first keynote address of a series of three that focus on the history of chemistry and its application to teaching. Contains 42 references. (DDR)

Previous research suggests that model competence does not emerge until relatively late in infancy (20-26 months). Development was systematically analyzed within 3 key areas--count noun learning, dual representation, and categorization--hypothesized to support the emergence of model competence in the second year. In an object-handling preferential…

Category knowledge allows for both the determination of category membership and an understanding of what the members of a category are like. Diagnostic information is used to determine category membership; prototypical information reflects the most likely features given category membership. Two experiments examined 2 means of category learning,…

This paper describes an exercise in determining the cognitive difficulty of the assessment tasks in six computing courses within an Information Technology (IT) degree, importing Bloom's taxonomy from the field of educational psychology as an analytical framework. Three of the six courses comprise a Programming stream and three a Data…

This paper reviews a body of work conducted in our laboratory that applies functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to better understand the biological response and change that occurs during prototype-distortion learning. We review results from two experiments (Little, Klein, Shobat, McClure, & Thulborn, 2004; Little & Thulborn, 2005) that…

Four experiments examined the development of negative priming (NP) in 3-5-year-old children using as a measure of children's executive function (EF) the dimensional change card sort (DCCS) task. In the NP version of the DCCS, the values of the sorting dimension that is relevant during the preswitch phase are removed during the postswitch phase.…

The selection of appropriate teaching models with which to bring about meaningful learning is an important and fundamental concern of the professional educator. This paper describes the development of a matrix of models and effects that was a three step process involving the compilation of a list of effects; the development of effect categories by…

A new approach to the measurement of mentalizing is introduced. Instead of measuring the presence or absence of mentalizing capacity, the current study aimed at developing a mentalizing task that focuses on investigating biases in mentalizing through the use of ambiguous peer-related social scenarios. The response consistency of 659 children was…

Procedures for responding consistently to plagiarism incidents are neither clear-cut nor easily implemented and yet inequitable treatment is intrinsically unfair. Classifying the seriousness of a plagiarism incident is problematic and penalties recommended for a given incident can vary greatly. This paper describes the development and testing of a…

To examine the link between analytic and holistic modes of processing and the amount of domain knowledge, 2 category-learning studies were conducted with 5-year-old children. In the first study, 26 kindergarten children were classified according to their verbal knowledge about plants and their familiarity with flowers. They then performed a…

Issues of meaning have become central concerns of research on language development. There are at least four reasons for the neglect of meaning by earlier researchers. First, Chomsky's original theory assumed that syntax could be described and explained independently of meaning. Second, linguists had long assumed that semantics was too messy and…

Forty-seven reading disabled children whose major reading problem was comprehension participated in a study to examine the effects of interventions designed to structure information in encoding and recall through the use of categorization strategy. Short term treatment consisted of four tutorials over a 2-week period. Long term treatment 1…

The availability and application of particular memory strategies by deaf children and adults was examined. In the first study, 20 younger (mean age, 6 years, 3 months) and 20 older (8 years, 8 months) children's use of rehearsal strategies was examined with a serial probe task. All four types of stimuli (animals, nonsense shapes, hands, print)…

This study was designed to examine the processes underlying developmental changes in children's (1) use of combinatorial strategy, and (2) comprehension of conjunctive and disjunctive propositional relationships. A total of 108 children from third, sixth and eighth grades participated in this study. Each child was administered three tasks…