The typical approach to studying the cognitive competencies of the elderly involves giving the same task to samples of elderly adults and college students. On such comparisons of performance of cognitive tasks, the elderly have almost always been found to be inferior, which is interpreted as indicating an irreversible age-determined decline in…

The Conceptual Learning and Development (CLD) Model suggests four successive levels of concept learning: (1) concrete--recognizing an object which has been encountered previously; (2) identity--recognizing a known object when it appears in a different spatial, time, or sensory perspective; (3) classificatory--generalizing that two items are alike…

A national random sample of over 14,000 high school seniors was studied with respect to socio-cultural differences in responses to cognitive test items. Six different cognitive tests and ten different groups were analyzed. The tests were: vocabulary, picture-number, reading, letter-groups, mathematics, and mosaic comparisons. The groups were:…

Case studies involving learning styles and strategies in English as a second language are examined, based on previous research in which two English pilot tests were administered to a sample of Finnish University students. Those who scored high and low on the two tests were selected for structured interviews, where attention was directed to…

Developmental patterns in one mode of formal reasoning (probabilistic reasoning) were examined in this research study, specifically: (1) to determine if developmental patterns of probabilistic reasoning could be confirmed using a large, diverse sample of subjects, and if they could be similar despite variations in the complexity of the reasoning…

Hierarchically organized knowledge about actions has been postulated to explain planning in problem solving. Perdix, a simulation of problem solving in geometry with schematic planning knowledge, is described. Perdix' planning knowledge enables it to augment the problem space it is given by constructing auxiliary lines. The planning system also…

UNDER THE DIRECTION OF PROFESSOR BRUNER, THE CENTER FOR COGNITIVE STUDIES AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY HAS CARRIED OUT A SERIES OF STUDIES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF COGNITION. THERE HAVE BEEN OVER 30 EXPERIMENTS ON THE GROWTH OF PERCEPTION, PROBLEM-SOLVING, AND REASONING BETWEEN THE AGES OF 3 AND 10, IN PURSUIT OF A THEORY TO ACCOUNT FOR THE CHANGES IN…

Ten prominent cognitive styles are discussed in a literature review. The review of each style includes an overview of the research literature; a review and evaluation of assessment instruments; and identification of styles which seem most relevant for application to Air Force Technical training. The cognitive styles covered are: (1)…

Three groups of adult second language learners were administered written tests of their knowledge of the grammar, morphology, and/or phonology of the second language. The tests were designed to distinguish between recognition of correctness based on knowledge of rules and recognition based on intuitive familiarity with the language. In the first…

Over 14,000 high school seniors were studied with respect to sociocultural differences on cognitive test item responses. Six different cognitive tests and ten different groups were analyzed. The tests were: vocabulary, picture-number, reading, letter-groups, mathematics, and mosaic comparisons. The groups were: American Indians, blacks,…

This study is an empirical investigation of Ausubel's paradigm of meaningful learning, applied specifically to the learning of high school physics students. In the first phase of the study path analysis and multiple regression techniques were used to describe the Ausubelian learning variables: available relevant ideas in learner's cognitive…

The relationship between cognitive and affective variables in the context of predicting student achievement performance in the classroom is examined. Specifically, the study examines the two-part question: 1) to what extent, and 2) in what manner can classroom achievement (grades) be predicted by selected cognitive and affective variables. The…

To compare the adolescent's mode of thinking on one specific measure of cognition, conservation of volume, with his mode of thinking on a task simulating a familiar real-life situation, a study was made using 162 students (76 males and 86 females, 13.4 to 17.7 years of age, grades 7,8,9,10,12). The students, grouped according to age into four…

The major objective of this series of studies was to clarify the concept of mastery motivation and to develop measures of this concept applicable to 1-year-old children. Three studies were made with 44 infants, aged 12 to 13 months. The first study, "Aspects of Mastery Motivation and Cognitive Functioning," utilized structured situations…

Scores of high school students responding to the same biology cognitive preference test using both normative and ipsative procedures were compared. All subtests, whether ipsative or normative, had high alpha Cronbach coefficients. A number of similarities were found in the mean scores obtained by the two procedures, as well as moderate positive…