If human cognitive development advances through a series of broad and general stages, then the child's mind at any developmental point should seem consistent and similar across situations in its maturity level and general style. However, there appear to be factors and conditions that promote homogeneity and heterogeneity in the child's cognitive…

This study investigated the effects of sex and athletic status on reaction latencies and movement time. Four variables were studied: reaction time mean, reaction time consistency, movement time mean, and movement time consistency. (CJ)

The purpose of this research was to examine developmental changes in the knowledge about what variables affect performance on the incidental learning task. Kindergarteners, second graders, fifth graders, and college students indicated on a rating scale how many animals a hypothetical person would remember under easy and difficult levels of each…

Investigated the effects of experimenter status and sex and instructional set on the size of "sexy" and "average" human figure drawings by students. Results showed no effects for experimenter status or sex. "Sexy" drawings were consistently drawn larger than "average" drawings and male figures were drawn…

Kindergarten children were pretested on attention and conservation tasks. Natural conservers performed better than nonconservers on attention tasks during the pretest. Training in attention led experimental groups to perform better than a control group on both attention and conservation tasks. Younger children seemed to benefit from attention…

Eighty-four undergraduate students were randomly placed into one of three treatment groups to test the effects of high, medium, and low teacher clarity (vagueness terms and mazes) on student achievement and student perception. Results indicate that clarity significantly effects achievement and perception with the medium clarity groups displaying…

Seven-year-olds and university students were questioned about hidden or visible colored counters. Under certain testing conditions, the children were able to demonstrate one of the major characteristics of formal operational thought, namely the ability to reason in terms of verbally stated hypotheses without reliance on direct, physical…

Class inclusion problems differing in size of the array and in superordinate class were given to 84 boys and girls in grades 1 through 4 in a first experiment, and 41 boys and girls in grades 3 and 4 in a second experiment. The experiments sought to determine performance variables explaining the developmentally late appearance of class-inclusion…

Female high school students participated in a motor task to assess the effects of success/failure feedback and extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. It was found that a significant change in intrinsic motivation was due to the effects of success/failure feedback, but not to the effect of a tangible reward. (Authors/FG)

Examined the accuracy of estimating correctness to responses on the WAIS by elderly adults and considered whether extraneous variables influenced either judgement accuracy or IQ score. Findings suggest that older persons seem uncomfortable with ambiguity and possess an unrealistic fear of failure. (Author)

Measures of limit setting and control in a toy cleanup situation were developed as part of a longitudinal study of lower-SES mothers and children through the first five years of life. Several findings suggest a distinction between mothers' seductive behavior and warmth or affection. Developmental implications are discussed. (Author/RH)

Dichotic stop-consonant-vowel identification was investigated in two experiments using two groups of learning-disabled children, demonstrating clinical manifestations of auditory-processing disorders, and two groups of matched, control Ss (eight to ten years old). (Author)

Twenty mothers and 20 fathers were brought into the laboratory with two of their children (one preschool-age, one toddler) and given a cognitive task that competed with child care for their attention. A phenomenological approach was used to predict changes in parental behavior under conditions of task competition. (Author/MP)

Discusses the positive effects of contingent rewards (verbal praise and house-points) as effective reinforcers of correct handwriting responses in elementary classrooms. Points out that direct contingency rewards proved effective in changing behavior, while implicit contingency rewards possessed aversive qualities. (JD)

There were initial positive effects from delegating choice over the selection of goals. The aspect of the task being delegated appears important. One cannot assume allowing others choice over some aspects of the task will be associated with positive outcomes. (Author)