The gain in word analysis for elementary school students tutored in a perceptual-conditioning approach was reported. Subjects were 98 first graders, 41 fourth graders, and 16 fifth graders. The approach instructionally separated the teaching of decoding from the teaching of comprehension; only single whole words were used and always out of…

A signature tree is a binary decision tree used to classify unknown patterns. An attempt was made to develop a computer program for manipulating signature trees as a general research tool for exploring machine learning and pattern recognition. The program was applied to the problem of speech recognition to test its effectiveness for a specific…

Using the two posters in this article, students are to search for patterns as a way of counting different types of squares and cubes obtained from a larger square or cube that is printed on the outside edge or surface. (MP)

Reviews studies of eye movements in reading and other information processing skills such as picture viewing, visual search, and problem solving. (BD)

Experiments with 81 college students and 48 fifth graders investigated the role of one form of intra-word orthographic redundancy--the characteristic asymmetric spatial distributions of letters of the alphabet across serial positions within words. Adults were sensitive to letter positional distributions, as were fifth graders who were good…

Experiments tested the predictions that words are perceived more accurately in strongly constraining word contexts than in weakly constraining word contexts, and that a strong perceptual advantage would be present for letters in words vs. letters alone or in unrelated-letter strings. Several alternative theories of word perception are discussed.…

Two ideas to use as a bulletin board display as an activity center, or as worksheets emphasizing whole number concepts are described. (JT)

Activity sheets posing problems in which students must examine and test various possibilities are presented. (SD)

Study looks at pigtailed macaque in the context of visual recognition problems adapted from a standardized test developed for use with human infants. Results demonstrate that the low-risk group easily differentiated novel from previously seen targets; the high-risk group gave no evidence of recognition. (Author/RWB)

Described are activities for thinking through patterns using toothpicks, paper strips, wooden cubes, and people patterns; thinking with attribute items such as geocards, namestrips, and treasures; and thinking with geometric materials such as geoboards and dot paper, cubes, and simple puzzle pieces. (MNS)

Two theories of clinical problem solving are contrasted; studies of medical problem solving are described; evidence is presented to highlight the central role of experience in development of problem-solving competence; and implications for teaching and assessment of problem solving, especially in medical education, are suggested. (MBR)

Three activities and patterns involving the addition table are described, each involving pentagons. (MNS)

A relationship was postulated between the experienced difficulty of patterns and the amount of disorientation of their reproduction. It was proposed that the underlying factor, in the comparison of Africans to Europeans, might be the development of the concept of horizontality, which reduces dependence on the perceptual pull of the prevailing…

Multibase arithmetic blocks are used to investigate the minimum number of blocks of each size to make a square of a given size in a given base. Generalizations are made to any size and any base through pattern recognition. The problem is extended to rectangles, cubes, and rectangular solids. (LS)