In a recently reported study, the functional components of imagery and vocalization strategies in children's verbal discrimination learning were examined, following the combined experimental/correlational logic of Underwood. The present research extends those results to a strategy that (unlike imagery and vocalization) has a positive influence on…

It is pointed out that interpretation of learning set data will be easier and more informative if one uses a "first-order" problem, that is, one which can be solved on the first trial at the end of training. (Editor)

This study examined the relationship between syntax discrimination and other language skills with 50 children each in kindergarten, first grade and second grade. Also, the children were asked to imitate and show comprehension of normal and scrambled grammar sentences. (Author/JH)

Children and adults were trained and tested on formation of novel simple discriminations and conditional stimulus relations. Subjects who formed these sets were trained and tested on formation of stimulus equivalence classes. A modest majority of children matched directly paired stimuli; a few matched indirectly paired stimuli. All normal adults…

An assessment of identity matching to sample with 2-dimensional forms was conducted with 44 subjects with moderate and severe intellectual disabilities. Overall, generalized identity matching was demonstrated in 34 of 44 subjects, including 7 of 16 individuals with mental age scores below 3.0 years. (Author/DB)

This study with 50 adults with mental retardation, found that performance on the Facial Discrimination Task (Emotional and Age Tasks) was significantly correlated to the Cognitive Assessment System total score. Hierarchical regression analyses produced results suggesting that cognitive processes are involved in processing facial stimuli in a…

Two experiments examined 6-month-olds' ability to discriminate between visual displays of various number of dots varying in size and position, and with controls for other extraneous variables. Findings indicated that infants could discriminate between large sets on the basis of numerosity if they differed by a large ratio (8 versus 16, but not 8…

This experiment assesses spatial and nonspatial relational memory in freely moving 9-mo-old and adult (11-13-yr-old) macaque monkeys ("Macaca mulatta"). We tested the use of proximal landmarks, two different objects placed at the center of an open-field arena, as conditional cues allowing monkeys to predict the location of food rewards hidden in…

Nurr1 expression is up-regulated in the brain following associative learning experiences, but its relevance to cognitive processes remains unclear. In these studies, rats initially received bilateral hippocampal infusions of control or antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (ODNs) 1 hour prior to training in a holeboard spatial discrimination task. Such…

Subjects' rehearsal strategies in learning a 32-pair mixed list of high- and low-imagery pairs of nouns during the four study trials in an alternating study/test presentation were measured. (Editor)

Conducted two experiments which employed discrimination learning methods to test predictions related to the difficulty of discrimination of lateral reversals and of inversions when shapes are presented: (1) successively, (2) simultaneously in lateral alignment, and (3) simultaneously in vertical alignment. Subjects were 6-year-old children. (SDH)

Subjects of this study were 19- and 23-week-old infants. Results showed that the older infants demonstrated differential attention to novel over familiar stimuli during recognition tests. An examination of their responsiveness during familiarization presentations indicated differing trends of looking activity. (Author/CS)

To determine whether the distraction effect associated with material rewards in discrimination learning can account for the superior performance of reward groups in probability learning, the performance of 144 school children (preschool, second, and fifth grades) on a two-choice successive discrimination task was compared under three reinforcement…