Five investigations examined three- and four-year olds' conceptions of the relationship between pictures and their referents. Results indicated that preschool children have difficulty holding in mind the distinct properties of picture and real referent, just as they tend to confuse the literal and intended meanings of utterances. (TJQ)

Noting that children who can easily categorize a picture in terms of what it depicts may have difficulty understanding the picture as a representation or thing in itself, four experiments with children around four years old examined their responses to pictures as things in themselves. Results showed that some children had difficulty understanding…

Studies of the ability of elderly debilitated patients to respond to conceptual training and their differential response to different kinds of conceptual shifts. (Authors/MB)

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)

Presolution reversal prevented or significantly retarded learning in kindergarten and first-grade children but did not hinder learning in fifth-grade children. (Authors)