This study assessed the developmental profile of unisensory and multisensory processes, and their contribution to children's intellectual abilities (8- and 11-year olds, N = 38, compared to adults, N = 19) using a simple audiovisual detection task and three incidental associative learning tasks with different sensory signals: visual-verbal with…

This research investigated whether episodic memory development can be explained by improvements in relational binding processes, involved in forming novel associations between events and the context in which they occurred. Memory for item-space, item-time, and item-item relations was assessed in an ethnically diverse sample of 151 children aged…

Three studies explored 2- to 4-year-olds' ability to categorize objects based on novel underlying causal power. Children saw that a "blicket" would set off a machine and participated in categorization, induction, and association tasks. Results demonstrated that even 2-year-olds easily learn about an object's new causal power and…

Picture-grouping and word-association tasks were used to evaluate the hypothesis that paradigmatic (same form class) word associates are not always categorical and may be a function of the child's understanding of interactive and categorical relations. (SB)

In 3 studies, 2.5- and 3-year-olds transferred knowledge from an easy task that required appreciation of a symbolic relation to a more difficult task involving a symbolic relation that children their age typically do not appreciate. Results support the theory that young children use insight into one symbolic relation to understand other symbolic…

Study concerned with the effects of procedural differences on the classification of geometrical stimuli. (Author)

Two studies examined whether 1-year olds' name learning during joint attention was guided by expectation that names will be in the form of spoken words. Results showed that 13-month olds, but not 20-month olds, learned a new sound/object correspondence, as evidenced by their choosing targets reliably in responses to hearing the word or sound on…

Examined whether superior recall of items in event-based categorical relations, or "slot fillers," remained when association and typicality were controlled. Found that only children receiving the typical + high association slot-filler list showed significantly better recall than with the taxonomic-coordinate list, with no differences…

The research literature on children's production of elaborations in associative learning tasks is reviewed, especially with respect to the questions of when children can produce elaborations under instruction, when they transfer elaborative strategy usage from one situation to another, and when they produce elaborative strategies spontaneously.…