Three studies comparing performance of mildly mentally retarded and nonretarded adults on simple visual discrimination tasks suggested that retarded Ss' performance deficits are associated with efficiency of smooth pursuit eye movement. (CL)

Three experiments involving 20 severely and profoundly mentally retarded adults revealed that redundant color cues did not facilitate visual discrimination of lexigrams, while random assignment of color and distinctive-feature training did facilitate visual discrimination. (CL)

The results offered little support for the hypothesis that teaching severely retarded learners to label stimuli would reduce the likelihood of stimulus overselectivity. (Author)

Stimuli varying in form, color, and size were presented on a demonstration trials procedure to 25 severely retarded adults and to 25 nonretarded children of equivalent MA. (Author/SB)

In Experiment 1, the illumination of black stimuli on white backgrounds failed to facilitate discrimination learning. In Experiment 2, however, illumination of white stimuli on black backgrounds facilitated discrimination learning. Findings supported the use of changes in illumination as an attention-influencing feature of nonspeech communication…

Forty-seven infants at-risk for mental retardation were divided into a group that received early day-care intervention and a matched control group that did not. (Author)

The effects of varying training settings and objects on the development of skill generalization were studied with 60 retarded students (5-16 years old). Research procedures were identical for all groups except for the manipulation of settings and objects. A factorial analysis of covariance supported the prediction that the visual discrimination…

Eighteen profoundly retarded men (mean age 41) were given repeated presentations of a two-choice visual discrimination using a modified Wisconsin General Test Apparatus and two probabilistic reinforcement schedules counterbalanced for order. (Author)

Eighty-two educable and trainable mentally retarded children (6-18 years old) judged whether a series of visual stimuli matched a standard. With each judgment the investigator verbalized "right" or "wrong" and then provided full feedback of cue similarities and differences that supported each judgment. Trained Ss exhibited total intradimensional…

The results showed that accuracy depended on both stimulus complexity, modality, and mental age, regardless of whether or not the Ss were retarded. The selection of haptic search styles also depended on these factors but, in addition, was influenced by the intellectual status of the children. (Author/DLS)

Fifty-one severely retarded adults were taught a difficult visual discrimination in an assembly task by one of three training techniques: (a) adding and reducing large cue differences on the relevant-shape dimension; (b) adding and fading a redundant-color dimension; or (c) a combination of the two techniques. (Author)

Nineteen moderately/severely retarded students (ages 9-22) completed ten 15-minute computer-assisted instruction sessions and seven basic cognitive tasks measuring simple learning, choice reaction time, relearning, probed recall, stimulus discrimination, tachictoscopic threshold, and recognition memory. Stimulus discrimination, probed recall, and…