Accuracy of memory for left-right orientation of single forms varying in meaningfulness and complexity was studied in 120 subjects at 5 age levels from kindergarten to adulthood. Complexity was found to be unimportant, but orientation of meaningful figures was remembered better than orientation of non-meaningful figures at all ages. (GO)

Three experiments are reported which attempt to provide a basis for assessing the importance of word shape for beginning readers. Kindergarten and first grade students chose from an array the response alternatives that most resembled a nonsense stimulus trigram or quingram. (GO)

Preschool, third grade and fifth grade children were presented with two choice-reaction time experiments in which probe stimulus quality was manipulated, to measure the effects of probe stimulus degradation at three developmental levels. Results support the hypothesis that children and adults employ similar strategies in preprocessing degraded…

A sample of 107 subjects including kindergarteners, fifth graders, high school sophomores, parents of kindergarteners, and master artists were presented with a 108-item color perception test to investigate surface color perception at these age levels. A set of surface color perception rules was generated. (GO)

The relative effectiveness of two types of verbal reinforcement and one type of tangible reinforcement on a two-choice discrimination task was determined for middle and lower class male and female preschool children. It is suggested that consideration of baseline and IQ might have reconciled disparate findings of previous studies. (GO)

Three experiments are reported in which the effects of oral overcorrection, used as negative reinforcer, were determined for thumb sucking and other behaviors in two 4-year-old children enrolled in a day care program for culturally disadvantaged behavior-disordered preschoolers. (GO)

Five experiments were performed in the area of children's causal reasoning to validate a previously reported developmental difference, to examine the role of a possible mediating mechanism, and to test a number of competing theoretical interpretations. (GO)

Two experiments designed to modify kindergarteners' pro-Euro-American and anti-Afro-American bias are reported. After an operant learning procedure, 30 Euro- and Afro-American kindergarteners showed reduced bias on a test not associated with the training. A curriculum promoting positive associations to dark-skinned persons had effect on 70…

Adults (either mothers or strangers) presented unfamiliar foods to 1- to 4-year-olds individually in their homes. Childrens' acceptance of the food was examined when the adults were eating and when they were simply offering the food. It was concluded that social facilitation could account for the data obtained. (Author/GO)

Thirty infants from monolingual Spanish-speaking homes were tested for discrimination of bilabial stop consonants differing in voice onset time (VOT). Discrimination was determined by the habituation and dishabituation of the orienting reflex as indexed by cardiac deceleration. (Author/GO)

The influence of the presence and novelty of an adult stranger on the reactions of 36 full-term year-old infants was investigated. Subjects were placed near their mothers in a room containing a new toy and either the same, a different, or no adult stranger for eight 4-minute trials. (Author/GO)

This report examines the causes of error in two techniques for measuring eye fixation position. Theoretical calculations of the magnitude of sources of error are shown to produce good agreement with empirically derived magnitudes for adult and neonate eyes.

Three experiments are reported in which 15 babies were presented with visual stimuli which varied in shape and distance from the eye. Results indicated that the majority of subjects binocularly fixated all three stimuli and it was concluded that the newborn baby has the basic requirements for binocular vision. (Author/GO)

This study attempts to develop a satisfactory child version of the linguistic task of judging grammaticality. With a nondifferentially reinforced forced-choice procedure, it was found that responses of 48 children (aged 5 and 7) varied as a function of the grammatical complexity of stimulus sentences. (Author/GO)

This study examines the possibility that the relational stimulus arising from being imitated serves a reinforcing function. A total of 48 preschool children performed a task in which some neutral stimuli were repeatedly associated either with an adult's matching the subject's behavior or the adult's mismatching the subject's behavior. (Author/GO)