When category learning is holistic: A reply to Ward and Scott

A reply is presented to Ward and Scott’s (1987) recent reservations about the evidence for Kemler Nelson’s (1984) claims about when category learning is likely to be holistic. Focusing on the effect of intention, this paper suggests that: (1) contrary to Ward and Scott’s contention, a reanalysis of a critical set of original data continues to support Kemler Nelson’s claim of more holistic learning under unintentional conditions; (2) there is converging evidence for that claim; (3) Ward and Scott’s incidental learning data may diverge because of the inclusion of many weak learners; (4) Ward and Scott’s counterproposal makes some implausible and unsupported predictions; and (5) some of Ward and Scott’s reaction-time data are difficult to interpret. Still, a final discussion identifies some significant points of agreement with Ward and Scott.     

Cognitive abilities and disabilities in infantile autism: A review

The literature on various aspects of learning and performance in autistic children is reviewed and interpreted as indicating very little that is specific to autism. Inadequate and inconsistent methodology precludes generalizations concerning the nature of the disorder. It is suggested that future research should be particularly concerned with controlling for developmental influences on performance, and with investigation of the higher functioning autistic children who are less governed by retardation factors. The current evidence is considered to support a hypothesis concerning abnormal hemisphere functioning in this group of children.     

Memory deficits in early infantile autism: some similarities to the amnesic syndrome.

Autistic children were compared with control children on tasks in which retention was tested by different methods. In three tests of recall, using named pictures, written words and spoken words as test stimuli, autistic children were impaired in comparison with age-matched normal children and with controls matched for verbal ability. In one test of forced-choice recognition of pictures, autistic children were impaired in comparison with ability-matched controls. In three tests of cued recall, using named pictures, written words and spoken words as test stimuli, and acoustic, graphemic and semantic cues, autistic children were not impaired in comparison with normal age-matched controls. In one test of paired-associate learning using non-related word pairs as test stimuli autistic children were not impaired in comparison with normal age-matched controls. These experimental paradigms were similar to some that have been used to investigate the amnesic syndrome in man. Thus findings on paired-associate learning differ in autistic and amnesic subjects, but findings on recall, recognition and cued recall are comparable. A possible parallel between autism and amnesia is discussed.