Two experiments were conducted which investigated the developmental patterns of children's rehearsal and organization of material to be memorized. (JMB)

Reports two experiments conducted in an attempt to extend findings by Ellis which suggest a rehearsal deficit in mentally retarded adults. (Author/SDH)

Presents four studies of concept identification behavior in first graders and kindergarten children under the blocking paradigm as implemented within a multidimensional discrimination task. While blocking was observed in children's learning, the data indicate the need for more sensitive and individualized measures of stimulus control in future…

Assesses the acceptance of and expressed preference for varying levels of salt in soup among children three to six years of age. (HOD)

Observationally induced concept acquisition and generalization were studies in 132 second graders, using a clustering task. Groups were provided with a live or target model and different types of verbal coding. (ST)

This study used event-related potentials (ERP) and visual preference technique to assess 6-month olds' ability to recognize their mothers' face. Results of five experiments suggested that infants can recognize their mothers' face, but the neural processes accompanying recognition depend on the difficulty with which mothers can be discriminated…

Used physical systems with effects of continuous magnitude to examine development of causal prediction in 30 children of 5 and 9 years and adults. There were clear age differences in the ability to integrate information about potency and resistance into sophisticated causal predictions of the magnitude of an effect. (RJC)

A multitrial free recall study assessed whether learning-to-learn and changes in strategy over sessions occurred with children in kindergarten and grade 3. Results showed that grade 3 subjects recalled more than did kindergarten subjects, but no learning-to-learn effect was obtained for either age group. (Author/JMB)

Results from these two studies show that fast mapping--gaining information about a word from how it is used in a sentence, what words it is contrasted with, and other factors--can be used successfully by children two to four years old to form quick and rough hypotheses about the meaning of a word. (PCB)

Two studies assessed the effects of material incentives and feedback on the use of rehearsal by first grade children. Subjects were required to remember the order in which the experimenter pointed to simple objects and rehearsal was assessed by observing lip movements during a 15-second retention interval. (Author/DB)

Examines the strategies young children rely on prior to learning how to assign the terms top, bottom, front, and back, and the stages they go through as they master these terms. (Author/MP)

Expectations concerning form and color in object label referencing of 80 children of 2-3 years were examined in 2 studies. Findings show that children as young as 2 expect form similarity to be a better guide than color similarity to the extension of object labels. (RJC)

Investigates whether pretend play is an area of advanced understanding with reference to certain skills that are implicated in both pretend play and a theory of mind, including the ability to (1) represent one object as two things at once; (2) see one object as representing another; and (3) represent mental representations. (MDM)

Addresses Nelson's commentary on Ward, Vela, and Hass' study of children's category learning (both of which are in this issue). Discusses the issue of whether a holistic processing view provides a better account of children's learning than does an analytical view. (PCB)