Shows how the scheme for understanding mimetic documents in previous columns can be used as a framework for understanding the levels of knowledge that make up John Anderson's "declarative stage." (RS)

In one experiment, infants were presented with their mother, a female stranger, and an object. In a second experiment, infants were presented with a female stranger and three objects with features that resembled an abstract, smiling face. In both experiments, infants smiled more to the person than to the objects. (BC)

Describes pictures--visual mimetic documents which show the denotative and connotative features of some object, state, or event. Presents instructional activities which use pictures. (RS)

Findings demonstrate a finer partitioning of auditory space near midline than in hemifields. Discusses implications for an understanding of the development of auditory processing mechanisms in sound localizations. (RH)

Report on exploratory research which investigated image attributes in a series of describing tasks. Results suggest that access to a wide range of attributes is needed to address all facets of interest and that certain classes of attributes may appear more frequently (literal objects, human form and associated attributes, color, and location).…

A simple extension of a network model of conditioning developed by N. Schmajuk and J. Di Carlo (1992) is applied to descriptions of two different conditioned stimulus (CS) functions: (1) a simple CS eliciting conditioned responses by signaling the occurrence of an unconditioned stimulus; and (2) an occasion setter controlling the responses…

We investigated the effects of discriminative stimuli on choice in a highly variable environment using a procedure in which multiple two-key concurrent VI VI components changed every 10 reinforcers and were signaled by differential flashes of red and yellow keylights. Across conditions, five pigeons were exposed to a number of different…

Pigeons were trained on many-to-one matching in which pairs of samples, each consisting of a visual stimulus and a distinctive pattern of center-key responding, occasioned the same reinforced comparison choice. Acquired equivalence between the visual and response samples then was evaluated by reinforcing new comparison choices to one set of…

This study examined the effects of modeling versus instructions on the choices of 3 typically developing children and 3 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) whose academic responding showed insensitivity to reinforcement schedules. During baseline, students chose between successively presented pairs of mathematics problems…

Older listeners with normal-hearing sensitivity and impaired-hearing sensitivity often demonstrate poorer-than-normal performance on tasks of speech understanding in noise and reverberation. Deficits in temporal resolution and in the precedence effect may underlie this difficulty. Temporal resolution is often studied by means of a gap-detection…

Analogue assessments were conducted with a common contingency (escape from tasks) that varied only by three different instructions describing the contingency. In one condition, the contingency was described as "taking a break," in another condition it was described as "time-out," and no description of the contingency was provided in a third…

Throughout the 25-year history of research on stimulus equivalence, one feature of the training procedure has remained constant, namely, the requirement of operant responding during the training procedures. The present investigation compared the traditional match-to-sample (MTS) training with a more recent respondent-type (ReT) procedure. Another…

The present research examined stimulus generalization and gradient shifts on a dimension involving human faces. Twenty undergraduates were instructed to examine the proportion of the total face length that lay between the tip of the nose and the end of the chin. The face stimuli were images of actual people shown on a computer screen; no face was…

We investigated the role of the structure of stimuli and their functional affordance on novel name generalization. Three- and 5-year-old children and adults were shown a training object with two possible functions, each one associated with a different part. They were taught about the name and the function of the object. We compared the…

It is commonly observed that "tone deaf" individuals are unable to hear the beat of a tune, yet deficits on simple timing tests have not been found. In this study, we investigated rhythm processing in nine individuals with congenital amusia ("tone deafness") and nine controls. Participants were presented with pairs of 5-note sequences, and were…