First- and third-grade lower-SES children learned perceptual and functional concepts with stimuli either high or low in imagery value. The results showed no differential imagery effects for the acquisition of functional concepts. When the concepts were perceptual in nature, the trends suggested high-imagery facilitation. (Author/JMB)

Describes a developmental study of semantic structure. (JMB)

This study examined the effects of judgment-contingent feedback and prior knowledge of 3 rules on the conservation learning of 188 kindergarten children. (Author/JMB)

Findings obtained from 90 first- through fifth-grade children indicate that children grasp the direct relationships between speed and distance and between duration and distance before they grasp the inverse relationship between speed and duration--a finding which may represent a general principle of cognitive development. (Author/RH)

While viewing a televised drama with second-grade children, adults stated implicit relationships between important explicitly portrayed events. Children who heard the facilitating commentary scored significantly better on understanding of implicit program content related to the adult's statements than did children who heard neutral comments.…

Three types of concepts were examined: concepts defined by sufficient features, concepts which possessed necessary and sufficient features, and concepts composed of exemplars with distinctive features. Second- and fifth-grade subjects learned the concepts in a procedure encouraging abstraction of common features or a procedure fostering exemplar…

Two experiments examined the role first, third, and fourth graders' intuitive theories about a subject played in their concept formation about the subject. Found that elementary school children can use theories to link together specific features associated with individual concepts. (MDM)

This study examined the generality of the logarithmic to linear transition in children's representations of numerical magnitudes and the role of subjective categorization of numbers in the acquisition of more advanced understanding. Experiment 1 (49 girls and 41 boys, ages 5-8 years) suggested parallel transitions from kindergarten to second grade…

Elementary school children's evaluations of peer tutoring were compared with their evaluations of the traditional practice of solitary work on tests to determine their conceptions of fair practices in testing and learning situations. Findings support the conclusion that children's understanding of different types of situations is reflected in…

A data analysis procedure for testing the hypothesis that one task is a developmental prerequisite for another task is illustrated. The procedure was applied to new data on the acquisition of conservation concepts to test the hypothesis that synthesis, visual-scanning skills, and memory capacity are prerequisites of conservation mastery. (JMB)

Younger and older children were asked to label pictures of nonprototypic, container-like objects in an effort to test Nelson's theory regarding the primacy of the functional core in young children's meaning structures. Contrary to expectations, the older, intermediate age children were influenced more by functional context than were the younger,…

Assesses comprehension of the mental verbs "remember" and "forget" among three-, four-, five-, and seven-year-old children by having the child judge whether or not toy characters in different situations remembered or forgot. (Author/RH)

Children's conceptions of the emotions of guilt versus shame were investigated in 2 studies involving children ages 7 to 9 and 10 to 12. Age-related differences in conceptions of guilt and shame emerged. The older children understood the adaptive implications of both emotions, whereas the younger children perceived them more in terms of the…

Judgments of similarities between numbers were solicited from kindergarten, third-grade, sixth-grade, and adult subjects. Results suggested children become sensitive to an expanding set of numerical relations during the period from kindergarten through sixth grade. Results of a second study suggested that the number similarity judgments of…