One of the forms of first musical conduct is the exploration of sound sources. When young children produce sounds with any object, these sounds may surprise them and so they make the sounds again--not exactly the same, but introducing some variation. A process of repetition with slight changes is set in motion which can be analysed, as did Piaget,…

Concept learning is challenging in part because the meanings of many concepts depend on their relationships to other concepts. Learning these concepts in isolation can be difficult, but we present a model that discovers entire systems of related concepts. These systems can be viewed as simple theories that specify the concepts that exist in a…

Many students struggle with statistical concepts such as interaction. In an experimental group, participants took a paper-and-pencil test and then were given training to establish equivalent classes containing four different statistical interactions. All participants formed the equivalence classes and showed maintenance when probes contained novel…

A study examined a series of seven experiments conducted in order to identify more precisely the hierarchical structure of the concept emotion, which presumably extended from superordinate to basic and finally subordinate levels. Subjects, 1,052 persons in all, participated in any of seven different experiments: (1) listing basic level categories…

Finds that the object concept scores of 104 infants were relatively independent of IQ and background variables, showing that object concept is the most stable developing function in infants and an accurate reflection of infant cognitive potential. (RL)

A study was undertaken to determine how children of different ages used drawing to present an atypical situation, to what extent children's responses were governed by their increasing cognitive competence, and to what extent children's responses reflected an increasingly articulate grasp of the medium itself. A total of 137 children in…

Maintains that modern sociology has paid too little attention to the concepts of imitation and suggestion and presents new findings indicating that these concepts have a powerful impact on social behavior. Presents evidence that automobile fatalities increase several days after a publicized suicide and relates these and related findings to…

Examines the origins and parallel uses of the concept of "facet" in bibliographic classification theory and behavioral research. Suggests that social sciences in general were receptive to conceptual borrowing, but that library and information science as a discipline was relatively isolated. (contains 108 references) (Author/AEF)

According to J. Piaget, the child continually constructs or refines previous constructions in defining reality. Taking Piaget's lead, a study attempted to describe how children construct reality, with particular emphasis on the role of television in that construction. Four young children were observed and audio taped in viewing situations in their…

Reports on a study based on the theory of constructive alternativism. Analyzed students' reactions to a photograph of an Indian village to learn what impact the students'"personal geographies" had on the reconstruction of the image. Suggests ways teachers can use these images to enhance students' understanding of world issues. (LS)

This paper discusses a study to determine how people view political power within the Swedish system. The objective was to investigate variations in the way people perceive a common social phenomenon. The sample was composed of 15 subjects chosen randomly from the adult population of Goteborg, Sweden. Subjects were interviewed regarding their…

A study was conducted on the relationships between information seeking and individual cognitive structures (both individual cognitive complexity and the constructs used to understand others). Specifically, the study sought to determine how people use questions to reduce the uncertainty of meeting new people in impression-formation interviews. The…

Three studies examined three-, five-, and seven-year-old children's understandng of verbal terms ("easy" and "hard") concerning personal competence. Studies focused on developmental change in understanding the terms and were designed to provide information about the order in which understanding of the terms was acquired. (HOD)

A study charting the development of grade school children's analogic reasoning used 26 second, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students from lower middle class and higher middle class schools. The children were asked to explain concrete, interactive, and abstract concepts to an imaginary creature (a puppet). For half the items, an initial period of…

Stimulated recall from videotapes of the lessons of six teachers in two elementary schools was used to obtain data on teachers' interactive thoughts and cognitive processes. A content analysis system was developed and used to examine the transcribed recall interviews. The information processing of all six teachers conformed to a broad pattern.…