Task differences on conservation and transitivity problems

Task differences were assessed with 120 first graders in a 2 × 3 × 3 factorial design combining Socioeconomic level (middle vs lower), Concepts (conservation of length, transitivity of length, and conservation of continuous quantity), and Tasks (three tasks for each concept selected on the basis of frequency of usage). As predicted, task by concept interactions were found on all four task response measures. This finding is consistent with Piaget's concept of horizontal decalage and with Flavell and Wohlwill's competence-performance model, which proposes that intermediate phases of stage transition are characterized by considerable intertask differences and initial and final phases by intertask consistency in performance. The importance of investigating the effects of task variables on multiple dependent measures at various age levels and points in time was emphasized. Concept, task, and socioeconomic class differences were also found on some of the measures.     

The child's memory for actional, locational, and serial scenes

Three-, four-, and six-year-old children (N = 180) were tested for recall of a toy missing from a previously seen display of four toys. Toys were displayed initially as a series (StoS), as a unit (UtoU), or moved from a series to a unit as S watched (StoU). There was a significant increase in memory for the missing toy with age. In addition, children viewing StoU displays remembered significantly more toys than did children viewing the other displays, independent of age. Twenty-five percent of the 6-year-olds rehearsed spontaneously while viewing the displays. Results indicated that the nature of a memory unit does not change with age, that memory improves with age, and that separate visual and verbal memories are operative in Ss in this age range.     

Effects of static and motion parallax depth information on perception of size in children and adults

The effects of static and kinetic information for depth on judgments of the relative size of objects placed at different distances was studied in 3- and 7-yr-old children and adults. Subjects viewed either a pair of objects placed on the floor of a textured alley or a projected slide of the identical scene. The presence of motion parallax information for depth was also manipulated. All subjects showed a clear sensitivity to static pictorial depth information in judging objects placed so they projected equal retinal areas. When the retinal size of objects was very different, however, children tended to respond to retinal rather than physical size. Motion parallax information increased responsiveness to depth when a 3-dimensional scene was being viewed, but decreased responsiveness with 2-dimensional projections. The decrease was greater in children than adults.     

The visual cliff: cardiac and behavioral responses on the deep and shallow sides at five and nine months of age

Cardiac and behavioral reactions of 5- and 9-month-old infants placed directly atop the two sides of the visual cliff were studied. Evidence of a developmental shift in infant responses on the deep side of the cliff was obtained in heart rate, which shifted from the deceleration previously obtained with younger subjects, to the acceleration obtained with the 9-month-olds of the present study. Behaviorally, visual attention on the two sides was similar at 5 months, but differed at 9 months, being significantly greater on the deep side. Limb movement showed less of an increase on the deep side than on the shallow at both ages tested. Negative vocalization and positive vocalization recordings failed to show any significant effects. The cardiac data are interpreted as indicating a possible shift from attentiveness to fearfulness on the deep side with age.     

The use of modeling to increase independent behavior

Three experiments were conducted aimed at increasing independence via use of modeling procedures in, respectively, two samples of neurotic outpatients and a sample of psychiatric inpatients. Significant gains in independence emerged in all three investigations. Subsidiary findings are reported regarding the operation in clinical contexts of ‘modeling-enhancers’ of demonstrated effectiveness in laboratory settings.     

Instigation of assertive behavior through videotape-mediated assertive models and directed practice

Twenty-eight undergraduate college women received an assertive training procedure in which they observed videotape-mediated assertive models and practiced nine types of assertive responses over a seven-week period. They reported significantly (p< 0.01) more assertive behavior and were rated as significantly (p< 0.01) more assertive than subjects receiving a placebo treatment and subjects receiving no treatment. There were also trends (p's = 0.17, 0.19, 0.29) for Ss receiving assertive training to report lower fear of social conflicts than subjects under the two control conditions.     

Coding strategies and cerebral laterality effects

In a short-term recognition memory task, Ss were given relational imagery and rehearsal coding strategies in different sessions, with probes presented to the left or right cerebral hemisphere. Consistent with a model of separate processing systems for verbally and visually coded information, Ss yielded significantly faster response latencies for probes to the left hemisphere than the right when employing the rehearsal strategy, and significantly faster latencies for probes to the right hemisphere than the left when using the imagery code. This suggests that cerebral laterality effects are functionally related to coding strategies, and argues for the inclusion of imagery, or generated visual information, as part of the visual processing system. As such, generated visual information may be viewed as a coding alternative to verbal mediation.     

Perceptual-cognitive explorations of a toroidal set of free-form stimuli

A polar-coordinate analogue of Fourier synthesis generates organic-appearing “free forms” that can be continuously deformed along any desired number of difficult-to-verbalize dimensions. Since the dimensions are also circular, the forms correspond to points on the surface of a torus which, though conveniently finite, is free of bounding edges. Two experiments explore a particular two-dimensional set of 81 such forms. The first shows that perceived pair-wise similarities among the individual forms are well explained purely in terms of the distances among their corresponding points in the toroidal parameter space. The second, however, establishes that forms that tend to be grouped together as having the same cognitive interpretation define regions in parameter space that are variously shaped or even bimodal and, hence, that cannot be explained solely on the basis of the fixed set of pair-wise similarities. The stimuli appear to offer a novel combination of cognitive richness and low-dimensional parametric control.     

An analysis of the word-superiority effect

It is easier to decide which of two letters was presented tachistoscopically if the critical letter was in a word rather than in a scrambled word. We showed that this word-superiority effect holds just as strongly for pronounceable nonwords as for words, even when the critical letters are constant over all trials. This finding rules out word meaning and familiarity as variables accounting for the effect. In addition, it was found that the superiority of pronounceable stimuli holds for two-letter stimuli as well as four, and it is therefore concluded that the effect is not due to a memory limitation. An explanation of the effect in terms of the use of additional acoustic information is ruled out by showing that the effect was not diminished when the two possible words sounded exactly alike. An experiment using correctly and incorrectly spelled chemical formulas suggested that spelling regularities, regardless of pronounceability per se, account for the superiority effect. Finally, when decisions about two critical letters must be made on each trial, the correlation between being correct on one and on the other is higher for pronounceable stimuli under some conditions.