Children aged 3 to 8 years old and adults were tested on a reality–fantasy distinction task. They had to judge whether particular entities were real or fantastical, and response times were collected. We further manipulated whether the entity is a specific character or a generic fantastical entity. The results indicate that children, unlike adults,…

Four experiments used the psychological refractory period logic to examine whether integration of multiple sources of phonemic information has a decisional locus. All experiments made use of a dual-task paradigm in which participants made forced-choice color categorization (Task 1) and phoneme categorization (Task 2) decisions at varying stimulus…

The classifying behavior of five-year-old children and adults was examined in two studies of restricted classification using triads of stimuli composed of the dimensions of length and density. Results were consistent with the notion of separable perception for adults and integral perception for children. (Author/SS)

In 3 experiments, 9-month-old infants' expectations for what distinct count noun labels refer to were investigated. In Experiment 1, a box was opened to reveal 2 objects inside during familiarization: either 2 identical objects or 2 different objects. Test trials followed the same procedure, except before the box was opened, the contents were…

Schema theory, an area of educational research within perceptual learning theory, is divided into five major subtopics: (1) explanation, development, and background; (2) theoretical approaches; (3) pattern classification; (4) pattern quantification; and (5) quantified pattern feature approach (which attempts to combine classification and…

A manipulandum-referenced taxonomy for response categories appropriate to primary education is presented. The tenability of automatic on-line evaluation of the different types of response when processing equipment of the sort that probably will be available to Southwest Regional Laboratory is preliminarily evaluated. (Author/SK)