Investigates the role of instructions in operant conditioning research with children. Subjects are verbally instructed to make an unreinforced response while an incompatible response is monetarily rewarded. Examines the effects of experimenter presence and characteristics of the adult giving the instructions. (DP)

Identifies events in the competitive process that could be employed to discriminate between competition and individual, nonsocial behaviors. If a subject is working for the competitive contingency and checks his progress against another's, his behavior may be classified as competitive rather than individual, nonsocial behavior. (DP)

Second graders were administered a two-choice discrimination task in which irrelevant dimensions were correlated .50, .75, or 1.00 with the 100 percent rewarded cue. Results indicate that learning was most impeded in the .75 condition and was most efficient in the 1.00 condition. These results support the Hypothesis Testing Theory of…

Assesses the relative effects of manipulation of antecedent stimulus conditions and subsequent reinforcement contingencies on imitative and nonimitative behavior. Fading (a form of antecedent conditions manipulation) was highly effective in establishing stimulus control of imitative and non imitative responding. Reinforcement of non imitative…

Two experiments investigated the effects of physical contact imitative training and verbal contact imitative training on the degree to which first and second graders exhibited generalized imitative affectionate and aggressive behavior. The effects of punishment as well as extinction on imitative behavior were analyzed. (DP)

Examines the importance of (1) dimensional characteristics of stimuli present in discrimination transfer tasks, (2) having contrasting stimuli presented simultaneously, and (3) subjects age. Subjects were rural Mexican youths, ages 4 to 10. Reversal and nonreversal type discrimination transfer problems were used in the study. (DP)

Investigates kindergarteners, and third graders' ability to identify novel and repeated visual stimuli. A continuous recognition memory task technique is used. Examines children's ratings of confidence in their decisions by using standardized photographs of peers expressing varying degrees of certainty. (DP)

Two experiments investigate the effects of mnemonic imagery on paired associate learning and retention of deaf and hearing children from verbally deficient populations. Interference with learning was built into both experiments by using lists of similar stimulus words; control groups learned lists with low stimulus similarity. (DP)

Clark's Semantic Feature Acquisition theory of semantic development is reviewed and evaluated against the recent experimental literature with special reference to the acquisition of English antonyms. (Author/MP)

Investigates how the experimentally manipulated sincerity of models affects their influence, by using a delay-of-reward paradigm. Subjects were 40 fifth and sixth grade children. (MP)

Suggests that the use of the operant conditioning paradigm, as it has been applied to infant social, vocal behavior, fails to take into account the social nature of human infants over and above the rigid theoretical rationale of the Paradigm. (MP)

A complex task designed to elicit a variety of memorization strategies was presented to 236 children aged 10 to 14. (MP)

Investigates the extent to which kindergarten children (mean age 5.8 years) allocate their processing resources selectively to the relevant components of a visual array. (MP)

Suggests that in tasks requiring the spatial coding of visual information children's performance depends on the degree of congruence between alternative spatial reference axes. (Author/MP)