A study was conducted to examine the situational generality of extended learning in early infancy. Ss were 17 infants within one week of eight weeks of age. All but two were Caucasian, and all were from middle-income families. The apparatus consisted of a pressure sensing pillow which, when placed under the infant's head or feet, was sensitive to…

This study uses a habituation paradigm to systematically investigate the discrepancy hypothesis with male and female new borns. In addition, multiple visual response measures are used in monitoring the habituation process and the infant's response to various degrees of novelty. Ss were 36 apparently normal newborns (half of each sex) ranging in…

Verbal description, recall, and recognition of complex meaningful pictures by children were studied, varying amount of stimuli and similarity of distractors. Across subjects (sex, ethnic group, and grade level) verbal measures were poor predictors of recognition accuracy. Across stimuli, amount recalled and recognition accuracy were both related…

With the advent of multi-screen capability in multi-media communication centers, it is possible to control the visual learning environment in a number of interesting ways. The basic assumption implicit in the concept of the multiple-image presentation is that it increases learning. A study tested the effect on learning of single- and…

This study explored the effects of visual (vertical and horizontal) and oral presentation modes upon simple mathematical computations (addition, subtraction, and multiplication). Seventy-two undergraduate education majors were employed as subjects. The placement of the process sign (left, middle, right) and whether a one or two digit number…

This document reports on a series of visual scanning studies done with Israeli preschoolers and kindergartners to resolve issues related to diagnostic test and instructional materials design. The first study assessed the effect of item content on error rate. Three multiple-choice tests, differing only in item content, were given to 38…

The efficacy of gating in the processing of simple, multidimensional stimuli was investigated. In Experiment 1, a continuous classification task was used, with subjects sorting cards according to binary dimensions of line orientation and location. Results suggested that orientation and location are integral dimensions, facilitation occurring with…

This study examines the phonetic effect and retention of preschoolers who were presented with a differential picture-matching task of phonetically similar and unrelated lists, under a condition in which verbal components of the task were emphasized and under a condition in which the children engaged in overt, cumulative rehearsal. (GO)

Two design strategies were tested on 69 elementary school children to investigate (1) the effect of using three types of pictorial supports to focus student attention on the important features of a concept or rule, and (2) the importance of specific pretraining instruction on using the pictorial to notice and label relevant rules and concepts.…

Children in grades 5-7 were shown emotionally ambiguous slides of Japanese and East Indian Canadians paired with positively evaluated words. There was no change in positive attitudes towards the less threatening group (Japanese), but a significant change toward the more threatening group (East Indians), the reverse of the findings of a previous…

A modification of Posner's letter-matching paradigm is employed to study the development of abstract visual and name codes for letters in second, fourth, and sixth grade students. (CM)

The eye movements of infants, between 4 and 11 weeks old, were recorded while they viewed either a representation of a face or nonface stimulus. (Author/SB)

This study was designed to determine whether infants could perceive action role reversals when the direction of action is ruled out as a cue; whether infants consider inanimate, nonpotent objects to be unlikely agents; and whether both these discriminations could be reliably reflected in the heart rate response. (Author/SB)

The ability to recall and organize actions was studied in a sample of 80 children ranging in age from 5 to 11 years. Eight different auditory or visual commands were successively presented for 10 trials in each modality in a free-recall task. (Author/JMB)