This paper reports two experimental studies of the development of time, speed and distance concepts in children. In Experiment I subjects (12 in each of four age groups: 5-, 8-, 11-year-olds, and adults) were asked to judge which of two electric trains on parallel tracks went faster, for the longer distance, or for more time. Subject's knowledge…

Recent research in reading comprehension suggests that there are substantial differences between individuals in their patterns of resource allocation to text-based (bottom-up) and knowledge-based (top-down) reading processes. Less able readers tend to overrely on processes in one direction, producing deleterious effects on comprehension. Factors…

Focusing on the process by which intentions get expressed in written form, this article presents a theory of communicative competence based on the development of the "part-whole" thinking process. Specific topics discussed in the article are: speech act theory; speech act theory and theories stressing the importance of subject cognition; genetic…

This collection of conference abstracts focuses on new directions for research on mental representation and early language development. One page summaries are provided on the following topics: Mental Representation and Initial Language Learning, by Lorraine M. Nicolich; Critical Issues in Language and Cognitive Development, by Roberta Corrigan;…

Strategies used by 150 children as they solved addition and subtraction verbal problems were studied over a period of one-and-a-half years. Number size and presence of manipulative materials were variables manipulated in individual interviews given at three separate intervals. Two addition and four subtraction tasks were used. Processes changed…

This paper studies the relationship of artificial intelligence (AI) to the study of language and the representation of the underlying knowledge that supports the comprehension process. It develops the view that intelligence is based on the ability to use large amounts of diverse kinds of knowledge in procedural ways, rather than on the possession…

A "release from proactive inhibition (PI) task" method examines the masculine-feminine connotation of a word as an attribute of encoding in memory. Male (N=45) and female (N=61) subjects were given four trials, each trial consisting of three occupations with all masculine or all feminine connotations, a subtraction task, and a recall…

Jean Piaget's theory seems to lend support to reading specialists who believe that concrete operational thought constitutes a necessary and sufficient condition for learning to read. Preoperational children cannot deal with the complex relationships inherent in reading because they are tied perceptually to the immediate situation or…

The investigation reported is primarily a description of how college students solve or fail to solve algebra equations. Protocols were collected from two groups of college students; one group was expected to be good solvers, the other group contained many poor solvers. The investigators sought to identify and classify the difficulties students…

An information-processing assessment of the construct validity of aptitude tests is presented. It is stated that aptitude tests have been rather successful because they possess high construct validity, although the constructs in terms of which the tests may be most profitably understood are information-processing rather than psychometric ones. It…

Much research in the area of person perception has dealt with the problem of how people organize information about other people, including how familiarity mediates the cognitive organization of person information. One multi-operational investigation found that information sets about familiar people, as opposed to unfamiliar people, resulted in the…

Professional development center programs present the opportunity for both practitioners and researchers to gain valuable insights into the teaching profession and the mental lives of teachers. Evaluation of these programs informs educational researchers and is responsive to the needs and expectations of funding agencies. It would be useful to…

The interactive effects of implicit normative and explicit situational consensus information were examined regarding the processes of causal attribution and evaluation. Stimulus items were single sentence descriptions of antisocial and prosocial behaviors representing the extremes of high and low normative consensus in each behavior category, as…

The current status of conceptions of learning in children is reviewed and some areas of neglect are considered in this paper. The main premise is that although considerable strides have been made in the understanding of the learning process, essential developmental formulations of growth and change have been poorly articulated. It is suggested…

A REPORT OF A CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN SPEECH AND HEARING FOR MENTALLY RETARDED CHILDREN IS PRESENTED. THE MAIN AREAS INCLUDED ARE THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION, PROCEDURES FOR MEASURING LANGUAGE, AND SPECIAL METHODS FOR TREATMENT. SPECIFIC REPORTS GIVEN ARE--"PSYCHOLINGUISTICS IN THE STUDY OF MENTAL RETARDATION"…