This study used the behavioral contrast paradigm to assess the excitatory and inhibitory capabilities of young infants. Behavioral contrast is described as the phenomenon whereby the rates of responding in the presence of two stimuli, both of which were previously associated with reinforcement, change in opposite directions when only one of them…

To develop a coherent description of the knowledge and processes involved in skillful word recognition, a study was devised in which 16 adults participated in four related experiments. The purpose of the first experiment was to examine some basic aspects of the processing of words, pseudowords, and nonwords and to discover basic differences in…

Three conjunctive concept-learning problems were presented to 70 educable mentally retarded (EMR) children (9 to 14 years old) and 76 controls (7 to 10 years old) to assess the effects of four verbalization conditions and the presence or absence of a memory aid on concept attainment. Verbalization conditions were the following. (1) no…

Developmental selective learning processes of elementary school age children were investigated using two types of incidental learning methodologies. The purposes of this study were to: (1) compare the effects of the two types of incidental learning paradigms, and (2) determine the influence of different kinds of stimulus relationships on…

This paper reports three experiments concerning methodological issues in studies on incidental learning performance which use verbal and nonverbal procedures and which appear to be hampered by differences in stimulus materials, learning opportunities, and dependent measures. The first study, using 128 children from grades 3, 5, 7, and 9, attempted…

This report describes the operation of a computer monitor called MYCROFT, a system which can debug elementary programs for drawing pictures. The basic skills which are fundamental to debugging skill (description, plan, linearity, insertions, global knowledge, and imperative semantics) are examined. These programs are written for LOGO turtles.…

This study examined the social labels which are first used by infants, social differentiation on the basis of labeling behavior, and overgeneralization of social labels. Subjects were 81 infants from 9 to 36 months of age. The 9- to 24-month-olds were shown slides of themselves, their mothers, their fathers, and unfamiliar children, babies, and…

The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into the nature of the reading process through an understanding of the general nature of sensory processing mechanisms which reorganize and restructure input signals for central recognition, and an understanding of how the grammar of the language functions in defining the set of possible sentences in…

The concepts "facet analysis,""facet design," and "facet structure" are defined. The FYCSP (First Year Communication Skills Program) Word Attack Test is analyzed in terms of two related facet structures. Stepwise linear regression is used to predict distractor attractiveness. Hypotheses suggested by Guttman relating…

Sixty-four preschool children were individually trained on a task requiring them to recognize an isolated phoneme in a word context. A learning set design encompassing 192 trials over eight days was employed. The major factors investigated were: the presence of a redundant visual cue; phoneme type (stop vs. continuant); phoneme position (initial…

In this study, kindergarten children classified as impulsive received (1) visual analysis training involving either motor or verbal responses, (2) were trained only to delay their responses, or (3) were assinged to a control group receiving no training. While all treatment groups showed a significant decrease in errors on the Matching Familiar…

Ninety-nine preoperational stage children learned 24 pictorial paired-associates at one of three levels of concreteness: low detail line drawings, high detail line drawings, high detail line drawings with a verbal prompt. Within each of these groups, one-third of the subjects received either visual attentional training, no training, or were…

A method for stimulating and facilitating organizational writing in the secondary school is described in this paper. Pictorial sequences are coordinated and arranged to typify the four major styles of writing: narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive. These sequences both portray a meaningful event in keeping with the writing style and…

Described are basic electronic features and results of research on the Video Articulator, an electrovisual speech analyzing device which has been used in speech training for the hearing impaired. Data are presented from studies of the validity and reliability of video patterns produced by various speakers using the Video Articulator and by the…

An experiment is reported involving the teaching of the agreement of the past participle without an auxiliary verb, with "avoir" and with "etre," patterned after the studies of S. Roller in 1952-53 in this area. The initial experimentation is updated and involves the use of a Skinnerian model of programed instruction. The objectives, operational…