This study investigates children's metarepresentational competence (MRC) with regard to listening to and making sense of simple sonic stimuli. Using diSessa's (2002) seminal work on MRC in mathematics and sciences as background, it aims to assess the relative importance children attribute to several criteria for representational adequacy…

This study used meaningful pictorial material to compare the functions relating complexity to two different response variables (voluntary looking time and preference) in 192 students from grades 1 to 8. Age differences were slight, and results are discussed in terms of theories postulating increases with experience in preference for complexity.…

Paper is based on a Master's Thesis submitted by the senior author to the Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, 1967. (IR)

This study investigated the process of perceptual exploration and organization of children as a function of age and sex in two experiments. In Experiment I, 3- to 5-year-old children named the pictures of nine familiar objects arranged in 3 x 3 matrices (exploration tasks) and indicated preference for objects represented in pairs (pair-completion…

Assesses subjects' information output after presentation of pictorial, word, and sentence stimuli. Output is measured in two modes of response: reconstruction and verbal description. Complexity of the stimuli is demonstrated to have important effects on perceptual information processing. (DP)

The major objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between the perceptual preferences of elementary school children and their performance on pictorial model-based tests of selected science concepts. Perceptual preferences for size and shape did not significantly influence performance. Preference for color did appear to be…

Two major trends in the development of natural language concepts were found in the present study: (1) there was a clear indication that such concepts exist in a relatively fragmented form in young children; (2) young children showed a strong dependence on perceptual attributes in their definitions of concepts. (Author/CB)

Sixty-three children ranging in age from three to nine years made age judgments on drawings of human figures. The stimuli consisted of four different male figures drawn according to typical physical characteristics of the middle-aged adult, adolescent, child, and infant. The figures were reproduced in two sizes and were presented to the subjects…

The relationship between color cues, figure form, and size discrimination was investigated. Subjects were 28 kindergarten students selected at random from a lower socioeconomic elementary school and 28 grade-3 students from the same school. From a higher socioeconomic area school, 28 grade-3 students were selected. In addition, 12 slow readers in…

Examines the differential influence of pictorial vs. verbal forms on the comprehension of metaphor in younger (second grade) and older (fifth grade) children through their performance on the pictorial Metaphoric Triads Task. (HOD)