The research concerned the association of neutral objects, such as nonsense syllables, with rewards, such as money and candy, in children. Thirty-six subjects were obtained from grades two through six of local public elementary schools in Nashville, Tennessee. Associations between neutral objects and rewards were formed in a task concerning discrimination learning. Subsequently, measures of the effects of the associations were obtained with respect to verbal evaluation, expectancy of obtaining new rewards, choice behavior, and a variety of aspects of selective attention. In different experiments, parameters of learning, such as magnitude of reward and per cent of reward, were investigated. The hypothesized effects were obtained with respect to the dependent measures. Studies of selective attention such as eye movements, were made with respect to a wide variety of stimulus variables concerning different aspects of information, such as novelty. With all types of materials, selective attention was found to be a monotonically increasing function of amount of information in the display. (Author/JS)