Research supported in part by the National Institute of Mental Health, grant MH-13515.

Supported by grant MH-13515-02 from the U. S. Public Health Service.

The verbal discrimination learning of elementary school children was assessed in two experiments. In both experiments, Ss were given either regular discrimination learning instructions (control), instructions to pronounce the correct pair member aloud three times during study trials (vocalization), or instructions to generate a visual image of the…

Seventeen preschool children were administered two color-discrimination pretests, verbal and nonverbal. The five children who scored lowest were chosen to recieve the color program. Four scored elow 85 percent on the nonverbal pretest, whereas the other 12 children scored above 85 percent. On the verbal pretest, all five experimental subjects…

Research on learning and conditioning suggests that verbal response modification does not occur in the absence of the subject's ability to define verbally (1) the response-reinforcement relationships and (2) his intention to change his behavior in the direction of reinforcement. This seems to be true for operant conditioning of verbal behavior,…

The study focuses on the possibility that the tendency of academic underachievers to respond in terms of all inclusive language is indicative of their incapacity to discriminate the uniquely meaningful aspects of their environment. The authors hypothesize that academic achievers would differ significantly from academic underachievers in their…