Building conceptual knowledge that generalizes to novel situations is a key function of human memory. Category-learning paradigms have long been used to understand the mechanisms of knowledge generalization. In the present study, we tested the conditions that promote formation of new concepts. Participants underwent 1 of 6 training conditions that…

Three source-memory experiments were conducted with Spanish-English bilinguals and monolingual English speakers matched on age, education, nonverbal cognitive ability and socioeconomic status. Bilingual language proficiency and dominance were assessed using standardized objective measures. In Experiment 1, source was manipulated visuo-spatially,…

Four of eight low-functioning, developmentally delayed preschool children initially failed to demonstrate expected oddity responding. In the context of a multiple baseline across-subject design, each of the previously unsuccessful children demonstrated significant increases in the percentage of correct oddity responses immediately upon…

This document describes the Conceptual Learning and Development (CLD) model of concept formation. According to the CLD analysis, a single concept is learned in the following successive levels of attainment: concrete, identity, classification, and formal. The four levels are considered applicable to concepts that are defined (or could be defined)…

Three experiments were conducted to determine the effectiveness of verbal and imaginal rehearsal strategies in children's discrimination learning. With verbal materials, imaging the referent of the correct item was more facilitative than vocalizing the correct item, as long as the former strategy was defined in a manner conducive to effective…

Introduces teachers to potential benefits of using conceptual analysis as an alternative didactic strategy. Outlines the framework and techniques, reviews relevant literature, and demonstrates several methods for developing cases. Concludes that conceptual analysis is a valuable technique for improving students' empirical thinking and work.…

Describes a study which used a discrimination-learning procedure to compare the ability of language-disordered and normal children to modify hypotheses. In a series of two-dimensional learning set and orthogonal problems, all children reached learning set criteria quickly; on orthogonal problems, language-disordered children performed…

This study of the effects of practice on children's perceptual judgments investigates the validity of the distinctive features hypothesis and the schemata hypothesis by comparing performance on discrimination tasks using familiar stimuli (letters of the alphabet) with a variety of transformations held constant over four massed practice conditions.…

The information processing terms "content" and "address" are used to describe structural differences between the constructs of individual identity and identity in the equivalence sense. In both cases a sameness relation is established in spite of specific differences. The resulting constructs of identity are known to be…

This book is an introduction to the psychological study of basic learning processes in children. Written for students who are not majors in psychology and who do not have much familiarity with the technical vocabulary of psychology, it has two themes: even the most basic kinds of learning are included by cognitive processes or mental activities;…

Groups trained to compare the whole and subset improved in cue identification from negative instances; performance in the stimulus exposure group declined. (Authors)

The proposition was investigated that concept learning is a twofold process: acquisition of a prototype and development of generalization and discrimination skills. The assumption that formative evaluation procedures are necessary when attempting to prepare better instructional treatments for improved student performance was tested. (Author/GK)

Reports three experiments to investigate differences in the semantic classification of pictures and words. The data suggest that visual short-term memory and semantic memory operate in semantic-decision tasks though these sources of information differ in characteristics, potential for activation, and level of abstraction. (PMJ)

Comparison between relational concepts and word definitions coincided with lower levels of thinking, and abstract definitions with the highest level. (Author)

How strategies affect learning of categories that lack necessary and sufficient attributes is explored. The authors propose that strategy variations induced by instructions affect only the amount of information represented about attributes, not processes operating on representations. An experiment required subjects to classify schematic faces into…