Longitudinal data gathered on 24 children at 51 months of age and at earlier ages suggest that children currently characterized as faster habituators, in terms of first fixation data, may be somewhat advanced cognitively compared to slower habituators. (Author/DB)

Research supported by Public Health Service Research Grant MH-11088 from the National Institute of Mental Health.

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…

This paper reports a study carried out with 14 children (ranging in age from 2.8 to 3.5 years) which investigated children's concepts of difference. Pairs of small objects differing on a number of dimensions were presented to the children. As each pair of objects was presented, children were asked to select the object that was…

Four experiments assessed converging aspects of four-month-old infants' perceptions of visual patterns. Results together corroborate and extend previous findings that vertical symmetry has a special status in early perceptual development and that infants can perceive pattern wholes. (Author/AS)

The call for behavioral objectives has stimulated speech-communication instructors to prepare students to be not only effective speakers but to be effectively able to relate to themselves and others across the socialization spectrum. (Author/MB)

Assessed students' ability to discriminate between two generalized personality interpretations, which varied in their base rate accuracy within a student sample in two experiments. Students recognized that the two generalized personality interpretations differed in their base rate accuracy and that neither interpretation described the students as…

The paper reviews contributions of J. Piaget and others to the understanding of perception's importance in the cognitive development of mentally retarded children. The effects of poor discrimination learning on IQ scores are noted. (CL)

Apparently contradictory findings regarding the locus of information processing differences between retarded and nonretarded persons were discussed. (Author)

The factors which influence a speaker's decision to use one categorization for an object as opposed to others that are available are analyzed. The categories that are most used in speech are basic level categories established at the most abstract level at which the category members: (1) share a number of physical and functional attributes, (2)…

Two 4-year-old children were shown the use of an apparatus whereby they could obtain toys and candy by making certain responses. The apparatus was a matching-to-sample device on which were arranged five response buttons in a circle and one in the middle. Each response button had a display window for the stimulus. Four of the five windows on the…

Two experiments investigated the role of children's spontaneous conceptual "biases" in pictorial discrimination learning. The results suggested that such biases may serve either to facilitate or to interfere with discrimination learning. Moreover, in each experiment, age by treatment interactions revealed that in comparison to the behavior of…

This study was concerned with the effect of situational frequency manipulations on subsequent discrimination learning. The subjects were 104 fourth-grade children attending two elementary schools located in middle-class residential areas. Twenty-six subjects were randomly assigned to each of two picture conditions. The other 52 subjects were…