Reports effects of context that are entirely perceptual. Visual discrimination was enhanced when line segments were flashed in a region that was perceived as a figure. Discrimination was substantially degraded when the same region was seen as ground although the physical stimulus remained identical throughout figure-ground reversals. (Author/JN)

Discrimination learning set performance was examined in preschool children as a function of age and number of trials per problem. Subjects were 120 children three, four, five, and six years old. (MP)

Two groups of mentally retarded children (MA: 4 to 8 years) were pretrained using two different methods. It was predicted that shift performance of the two groups trained to use different strategies would resemble those of two different developmental levels. (MP)

Preschoolers learned colors more rapidly than sizes and forms when cup stimuli were used. They learned sizes and forms more rapidly than colors when face stimuli were used. (RL)

Three experiments were performed to test the assertion that attractiveness of novel or complex stimuli has confounded experiments on the relative importance of S+ and S- in discrete-trial discrimination. (Editor)

Three preschoolers performed four sorts with stimulus cards--an untaught target sort and three directly taught alternating sorts considered to self-instruct the target performance. Accuracy increased first in the skill sorts and then in the untaught target sorts. All subjects generalized to new target sorts. Correct spontaneous self-instructions…

This study tested 5- and 8-year-olds and adults in a bisection task with a sequence of stimuli in which time and number co-varied. Findings indicated that the number of stimuli interfered with 5-year-olds' performance on the temporal bisection task. Number interference decreased both with age and counting strategy. In the numerical bisection task,…

Abilities of individuals (n=42), either with or without mental retardation, to search for and detect changes to naturalistic scenes were investigated. Individuals with mental retardation required more time to detect changes, especially changes of marginal interest. Eye-tracking analysis of six participants suggested that individuals with mental…

A group of 76 male and female toddlers identified drawings depicting boys and girls alone or with sex-typical or sex-atypical toys by responding "girl" or "boy,""girls' toy" or "boys' toy." The youngest girls outperformed the youngest boys in identifying toys. Otherwise, responses in general improved with…

Two studies involving 108 infants of 6, 9, and 12 months showed that providing infants with multiple action-relevant properties elicits a rich action repertoire. (RJC)

Attempted to maximize the efficacy of time-delay discrimination training of 16 preschoolers. No indications were found of effects of precision response pretraining on the outcome of time delay of static cues. Transfer and lack of transfer of stimulus control were associated with nonshifts and shifts of response loci, respectively. (RH)

This study examined whether 49 adults with mild or moderate mental retardation could perform reliably enough on the Penn Facial Discrimination Task to make this a useful research measure for evaluating visual-receptive processing. Results found subjects generally performed well above chance level, that retest reliability was reasonably high, and…

This response to Chandler et al. (EC 604 147) suggests that generalization of social competence training be viewed from both functional and topographical perspectives which have scientific and practice biases, respectively. The paper proposes a generalization-discrimination continuum along which behaviors may be placed for optimum utility. (DB)

This paper describes the Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities Test and recommends its use to assess discrimination acquisition or learning-to-learn skills of persons with severe and profound disabilities. (DB)