The eyes have it: Young children's discrimination of age in masked and unmasked facial photographs

The ability of preschool children to discriminate age, and their use of information from different facial areas in this task, was investigated. Most 4-year-olds were able to rank sets of seven facial photographs into age order successfully. Subsequently, they were presented with facial stimuli in which different regions of the face were masked out. Masking of the eyes produced a marked performance decrement, and masking of the nose and cheeks a slight decrement, relative to masking of either the mouth and chin, or of the hair and neck. Possible explanations of the results are discussed, together with the verbal comments of the children on the cues they were aware of using.     

Understanding strategic interactions in television commercials: A developmental study

The purpose of this study was to introduce an assessment procedure designed to explain developmental differences in understanding television advertising messages. Goffman's sociological concept of the “strategic interaction” and “recursive thinking,” the social analogue of Inhelder and Piaget's analysis of formal operational reasoning, provided the conceptual framework for our experimental paradigm. Four commercials for children's food products containing strategic interactions between two siblings were shown to 84 children, adolescents, and young adults. Participants were assessed for their understanding of the actors' behaviors and thoughts and for their understanding of the intent and persuasive strategy of the advertiser. Results indicated effects for both grade and commercial structure. The implications of these findings for social-cognitive development and for policy affecting children and television advertising are discussed.     

Children's understanding of the link between situation and emotion

Children of 6 and 10 years were assessed in three experiments for their insight into emotional reactions that are not directly linked to the current situation. Experiment 1 showed that both age groups know that emotion gradually wanes, after the precipitating situation. Experiment 2 showed that both age groups, but especially 6-year-olds, have difficulty in admitting that a single situation can provoke an emotional conflict between a positive and a negative emotion. Experiment 3 showed, on the other hand, that both age groups understand how an earlier situation can provoke an emotion that persists so as to eventually be concurrent with a later, conflicting emotion. Overall, the results show that both age groups understand that a person's current emotional state cannot be directly inferred from his or her immediate situation. Yet they have considerable difficulty in admitting that a single situation can sometimes provoke both a positive and a negative emotion.     

Contiguity and contingency in the acquisition and maintenance of an operant

Three experiments compared the effects of nondifferential and differential reinforcement of response location on a circular dimension. Rats were required to operate a vertical joystick to produce food. When food was delivered immediately after responses, but independent of response location, the spatial concentration of responding was low and no progressive changes were observed. Traditional and percentile schedules of differential reinforcement for response location produced highly reliable acquisition of spatially concentrated responding. Once concentrated responding had been established, nondifferential reinforcement was sufficient to maintain it in some subjects. Since only the differential reinforcement schedules established a contingency with respect to response location, it was concluded that this relationship was necessary for acquisition, but that response-reinforcer contiguity may be sufficient for maintenance. This conclusion is consistent with the view that operant conditioning is a contiguity-based process, but that contingencies are required to produce reliable contiguity between reinforcers and particular responses.     

Production of narrative discourse in aphasia

The study described the abilities of a group of 15 moderately impaired aphasics and 15 normals to produce narrative discourse. The experimental tasks included telling stories, summarizing stories, and giving morals to stories. The data were analyzed in terms of sentential grammar, discourse grammar, and subjective ratings of content and clarity of language. The results showed that aphasics produced well-structured discourse. The language of the aphasics' discourse was reduced in both complexity and amount, as compared to that produced by normals. The reduction of language reflected selective reduction of hierarchically organized information. The findings of the study confirm the results of previous research on mildly impaired aphasics, which also showed preservation of discourse structure with selective reduction of information.     

The interaction of cognitive styles and classroom environment in determining first-graders' behavior

This study investigates the importance of two “person” variables, reflection impulsivity and divergent thinking, and one “situation” variable, the classroom climate of first-grade classrooms, for the classroom adaptation of first-graders. Three types of classrooms differing in classroom climate were selected: open, intermediate, and traditional. Subjects were the children (n = 189) in these classrooms. Classroom adaptation variables included self concept, school attendance, and teacher ratings of classroom behavior, overall academic rank, and personal preference. Both main effect and interactional relationships between “person” and “situation” variables and classroom adaptation were hypothesized. Classroom environment was found to affect degree of classroom disturbance manifested by the children with students in open classrooms exhibiting most and students in the intermediate classrooms exhibiting least. Boys in the open classrooms had higher achievement anxiety and lower teacher preference ratings than boys in traditional or intermediate classrooms. Reflective children obtained higher ratings as self-reliant learners and, for boys, reflection was related to low classroom disturbance and high achievement anxiety. Interactional relationships between classroom environment and reflection-impulsivity were also found for boys. Divergent thinking was not related to classroom adjustment for boys. Girls high in divergent thinking were higher in school involvement and achievement anxiety and more preferred by teachers.