Developmental differences in subjects' associative-learning strategies and performance: Assessing a hypothesis

Fifth-, seventh-, and ninth-grade (11-, 13-, and 15-year-old) subjects were presented with a list of paired associates to learn and were interviewed about the strategies used to learn them. Although a majority of fifth graders reported simply rehearsing the pairs in order to remember them, very few ninth graders relied exclusively on rehearsal. Consistent with a hypothesis advanced by Rohwer (1973), the number of subjects who elaborated some or all of the pairs increased with age. Paired-associate performance increased with age, but the level of paired-associate learning was much more related to the type of strategy reported by the subject than to the age of the subject per se.     

The role of overt activity in children's sentence production

Nursery schooler's abilityto associate pairs of toys was assessed under four experimental conditions: (1) control, (2) S manipulating the toys, (3) S generating a sentence, and (4) S generating a sentence while manipulating the toys. All three S-involvement conditions produced significantly better recognition performance than the control but contrary to initial predictions, the difference between the sentence-only and sentence-plus-manipulation conditions was not significant. In contrast to previous research, Ss in the sentence-only conditions had little difficulty producing sentences when asked. Of interest was the finding that the quality of sentence production was poorer in the sentence-plus-manipulation condition than in the sentence-only condition. Results are discussed in terms of the possible “conflict” produced when the child is required to engage in more than one overt activity simultaneously.     

Partial pictures as imagery-retrieval cues in young children's prose recall.

Two experiments, involving first-grade children, were conducted to test a retrieval-inefficiency explanation for the failure of visual imagery to facilitate young children's prose recall. Consistent with this explanation, children who were given stimuli presumed to elicit visual imagery (“partial pictures”) both during the presentation of a story and at the time questions were asked about the story recalled more story content than children given the partial pictures only during story presentation. An alternative account of these findings—namely that they may be attributed to a general cueing effect—was ruled out in the second experiment. Cognitive-developmental aspects of visual imagery strategies in prosememory situations are discussed.     

Task parameters affecting the efficacy of a visual imagery learning strategy in younger and older children

Second- and sixth-grade children were presented a list of paired associates (concrete nouns) either at a faster (6-second) or a slower (12-second) presentation rate, under either an instruction to generate an interactive image for the pairs or a no strategy, control instruction. The list was composed of two pair types: easy-to-imaginally relate and difficult-to-imaginally relate pairs, as determined from a prior norming study. At the faster presentation rate, 2nd graders were able to benefit from the imagery strategy with easy pairs, but not with difficult pairs. At the slower rate, however, they applied the imagery strategy equally well to both pair types. Older children benefited from the imagery strategy with both pair types at both rates.     

A developmental study of pronouncing responses in the discrimination learning of words and pictures

Subjects at three age levels were administered picture pair or word pair discrimination lists. They pronounced or pointed as a method of choice, and they pronounced or pointed at the correct item (or remained silent) during rehearsal. The results indicated that with picture pairs, pronunciation facilitated learning as a method of choice and a type of rehearsal in nursery school Ss. For fifth grade and college Ss, there was no significant difference between pronouncing and pointing as a method of choice. However, spoken rehearsal was superior to control performance for fifth grade Ss. College Ss performed equally well in the control and pronouncing conditions, but pointing during rehearsal produced significantly more errors than pronouncing. Word pairs produced no significant pronunciation effects. These results were discussed within an internalization of speech perspective.     

The effect of children's spontaneous cognitive sets on discrimination learning

Two experiments investigated the role of children's spontaneous cognitive “sets” in pictorial discrimination learning. Lists were constructed to highlight either perceptual or conceptual similarities among the stimuli. In each experiment age by treatment interactions revealed that in comparison to the behavior of older children (sixth graders), that of younger children (kindergartners) is governed more by the perceptible than by the conceptual attributes of stimuli—data in complete accord with Bruner's view of cognitive development.     

Common items and reliability in personality measurement

Most psychological tests and inventories, particularly in personality and attitude measurement, contain common items, that is, various subscales of the test or inventory may share one or more items in common. Surprisingly, the role of common items in such a fundamental personality test attribute as reliability is not known. The present report specifically considered common-item contributions to test internal consistency reliability using extant data from the California Psychological Inventory. No negative contribution of item overlap was found. To the contrary, it was concluded that the use of common items is an economical technique for increasing the total number of items in the scales, thus increasing scale internal reliabilities without increasing the overall number of items in the inventory.     

Image tracing: An analysis of its effectiveness in children's pictorial discrimination learning

Previous research has shown that requiring children to trace from memory the correct member of a pictorial discrimination pair markedly facilitates performance. The experiment reported here offers support for a presumed component of this learning strategy, namely, “memory imagery.” In particular, subjects who traced directly on top of the correct picture did not perform as well as those who traced it from memory. Various theoretical explanations of the image-tracing phenomenon are considered, including depth of processing, dual coding, and frequency.     

Factor structure of the WISC-R with Anglos and Mexican-Americans

The present study compared the underlying factor structure of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised for Anglo and Mexican-American children. Subtests of the WISC-R were administered to 109 Anglo and 123 Mexican-American children ranging from 8 to 15 years of age and were analyzed separately for each group. Three factors emerged for each ethnic classification which corresponded closely to those usually reported for the WISC-R. Coefficients of congruence (.84–.89) between factors given the same name for each ethnic group indicated a high degree of similarity in constructs being measured.     

A comparison of preservice and experienced teachers' perceptions of the school psychologist

The present study compared experienced and preservice elementary school teachers' perceptions of the school psychologist. Thirty-two experienced teachers were matched with a like number of second semester juniors in training. A questionnaire asked each respondent to (a) rank a number of school personnel on their importance, (b) assign a number of referral problems to professionals best equipped to handle them, and (c) to rate the school psychologist's functioning on 11 dimensions. The analysis showed that experienced and preservice teachers agreed about the importance of the school psychologist and the appropriateness of referral problems. Analysis of ratings revealed that experienced teachers had a more negative opinion of the school psychologist's functioning when compared to their novice counterparts.     

The use of the peabody picture vocabulary test with emotionally disturbed adolescents

The validity and reliability for the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) was estimated with 52 nonpsychotic emotionally disturbed adolescents. Approximately 6 months after an initial administration of the PPVT and the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT), all children were retested. Significant increases in PPVT IQ and PIAT reading comprehension scores were found upon readministration. The internal consistency estimate for the initial PPVT administration showed considerable consistency in responding. A modest temporal stability estimate indicated a fair amount of fluctuation in scores over time. Concurrent validity coefficients for the PPVT indicated moderate to dependable relationships with PIAT subtests. Predictive validity estimates for the PPVT suggested moderate relationships with future achievement, accounting for some 26% of the variability in total achievement.     

Content analysis of the strong vocational interest blank for women

The content of each of the Occupational and Nonoccupational scales on the Strong Vocational Interest Blank for Women (SVIB-W; Form TW398) was described in terms of the categories used for the Basic Interest scales. The number of common items scored on the Occupational or Nonoccupational scales and the Basic scales was cross-tabulated for each pair of scales. A variety of interest factors was represented on each of the Occupational and Nonoccupational scales. Several shortcomings of the SVIB-W (e.g., restricted range of interests represented in item pool, no Occupational scale for “outdoors” occupations, and questionable validity of Diversity scale) were noted.     

Acquiring new word meaning: What does it tell us about development

R. J. Sternberg (1984, Developmental Review, 4, 113–138) offers a thoughtful and provocative essay on how individuals acquire meanings for novel or unfamiliar nouns. The Sternberg essay, however, is incomplete on a number of grounds. By stressing general processes and specific knowledge as critical components in the acquisition of verbal concepts, for example, it overlooks two logically complementary categories—specific processes and general knowledge—and the role these play in the acquisitions in question. A second concern is that the paper blurs distinctions among development, short-term learning, and the origin/acquisition of individual differences. Finally, Sternberg is encouraged to frame the specific phenomenon described here within the context of a larger theory of intellectual development and to indicate what else this specific model can be used to explain.     

Dissociation between conditioned emotional response and extended avoidance performance

The present experiments examined the dissociation between the strength of a shuttlebox avoidance response (AR) and one index of fear of the avoidance CS. Avoidance response strength was indexed by resistance to extinction of the AR and by changes in response latency, and fear of the CS was indexed by the conditioned emotional response (CER) technique. Experiments 1, 2A, and 3A all found that rats trained to a criterion of 27 consecutive avoidance responses (CARs) showed response strength comparable or superior to rats trained to a criterion of 9 CARs. Experiments 2B and 3A demonstrated that rats trained to 27 CARs showed less suppression of bar pressing during the avoidance CS (less CER) than rats trained to 9 CARs. Experiment 3A also found that, when extinguished in the shuttlebox to a moderate criterion (5 consecutive trials without a response) before CER testing, rats trained to 9 CARs showed some, although not complete, loss of CER, whereas rats trained to 27 CARs showed no loss of CER. In Experiment 3B rats that took 1 vs 2 days to reach a criterion of 27 CARs were compared for their AR strength and for their CER. Although rats taking 2 days to reach criterion showed somewhat greater resistance to extinction of the AR than rats reaching criterion in 1 day, this variable had no apparent effect on the CER. Implications of the present results for current theories of avoidance learning are discussed.     

Dissociative effects of different types and amounts of nonreinforced CS exposure on avoidance extinction and the CER

Two experiments examined the effectiveness of two amounts of flooding or response-prevention on hastening avoidance response extinction and on reducing CS-produced suppression of bar-pressing for food. In Experiment 1, 20 and 30 flooding trials were both shown to be effective in hastening the extinction of a well-learned shuttlebox avoidance response. In Experiment 2, rats trained under comparable conditions to those in Experiment 1 were tested following flooding for the CER in a different apparatus. The results indicated that 30, but not 20, flooding trials were sufficient to reduce the CER. In each experiment the results of additional control groups equated with the flooded groups for nonreinforced CS exposure also revealed a dissociation between the effectiveness of this CS time control procedure in hastening avoidance response extinction and in reducing the CER. Further comparisons showed that although 30 flooding trials did reduce the CER, the same total duration of nonreinforced CS Exposure in the form of avoidance extinction trials did not. Thus the context in which CS exposure occurs may affect the dynamics of extinction of the CER. The experiments are discussed in the broader context of dissociation of various indices of fear in humans.     

Theoretical and methodological analysis of partial knowledge

A theory of partial knowledge is proposed as an explanation of cognitive development, and methods are described for testing the theory. The theory consists of three structure-process pairs, each of which postulates a type of cognitive structure and a developmental process specific to that type. In restricted knowledge, a unitary algorithm is the cognitive structure, and amendment is the developmental process. In variable sampling, a structure of unitary substitutes is paired with a process of selection. In variable integration, modular components are paired with self-monitoring. Methods for testing the theory form a sequence of mathematical models. The first model in the sequence, called a model of double assessment, is described both verbally and mathematically. Other models in the sequence are described verbally with reference to other articles for the formal mathematics. Also described are some nonmathematical methods to be used as sequels to the double assessment model.     

Dissociative effects of flooding on a multivariate assessment of fear reduction and on jump-up avoidance extinction

Two experiments examined the effectiveness of three different amounts of flooding on hastening extinction of a jump-up avoidance response and on reducing fear as assessed by the multivariate fear assessment techniques of D. P. Corriveau and N. F. Smith (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 1978, 107, 145–158). In Experiment 1, a 40-min flooding treatment significantly hastened jump-up avoidance extinction, 10 min of flooding had a marginal effect, and 5 min had no effect. In Experiment 2, flooding treatments of 5, 10, and 40 min duration were all effective in reducing fear of the grid floor as indexed by seven of our nine dependent measures, including approach latency, safety test latency, and amount of time spent on the grids. Flooded subjects that were dumped onto the grid floor once at the start of the fear observation phase were found to show somewhat more fear reduction than were flooded subjects that were simply placed on the ledge at the outset of the fear observation phase and never dumped. These results, i.e., less flooding is required to reduce fear than to hasten avoidance extinction, are contrasted with those of previous experiments indicating that more flooding may be required to reduce fear than to hasten shuttlebox avoidance extinction. Such differences are discussed in the context of SSDR theory.     

Some further tests of the brief confinement effect and the SSDR account of flooding

Although brief confinement in novel or fearful places may occasionally produce flooding-like effects with regard to hastening avoidance response extinction, the results of the three experiments reported here indicate that this is not as robust a phenomenon as is flooding. Experiments 1 and 2 found that any tendency for a brief confinement effect to occur is likely to result from the use of a procedure where extinction is started on the grid floor as opposed to on the ledge of a jump-up box. Experiment 3 found no evidence at all that confinement in either a novel or a fearful place can hasten the extinction of a more well-learned jump-up response than that studied in previous experiments, even when the grids extinction procedure was used. Overall these results do not support the SSDR account of flooding, which has derived its chief support from experiments demonstrating a brief confinement effect.     

Measuring the importance of information in judgment: Individual differences in weighting ability and effort

Measuring the importance of cues in social judgment has been a longstanding problem. Past research has shown individual differences in the impact of ability and study effort on judgments of student performance. This research examined the hypothesis that the individual differences are due to the weight given to the information as opposed to the perceived extremity of the values of the information. Subjects judged the performance of hypothetical students described by ability, study effort, and effort during an exam. Individual differences in the impact of the three types of information were obtained and were predictable from self-reports of the relative importance of information. Different values of weights were necessary to account for the differences in the impact of information, although there were also differences in the perceived extremity of the information. The theoretical and applied significance of distinguishing the weight given to information in judgment from its subjective value are discussed. On the basis of a new review of the literature, as well as the present results, it is concluded that self-reports of the relative importance of information are predictive of individual differences in information use in judgment, but that they may reflect the total impact of information rather than only the weight.     

Developmental changes in predicting one's own span of short-term memory

Developmental changes in the accuracy of predicting one's own recall were studied, using preschool, third grade, and college subjects in Experiment 1 and third grade and college subjects in Experiment 2. Experiment 1 showed that prediction accuracy increased from the preschool to the college years, subjects were not influenced by a potential “expectancy” bias in the procedure, and only third grade subjects were influenced by the presence of norms about peer performance. Experiment 2 showed that third graders and college subjects lower their predictions in the face of “false” norm information, with college subjects being the only group to under predict actual recall in both experiments. Thus, although adults are significantly more accurate than elementary shool children in estimating short-term recall, their susceptibility to norm information suggests that even they have uncertainty about their exact capabilities.