This research studied the relation between mastery of the words "and" and "or" and performance on the conjunctive and disjunctive tasks. A definition test was used to measure level of mastery of the linguistic terms and a traditional logical test to measure logical task performance. Results are related with ability to solve logical tasks.…

Specifications are offered for a stage theory of adult cognitive development. Current psychometric technologies are criticized as being limited in descriptions of cognitive function. The development of novel technologies is suggested for study of adult cognitive development. Paper presented at the 10th International Congress of Gerontology,…

Three investigations of preschool children's comprehension of "younger" and "older" are discussed. Results suggest children focus on height in their initial hypotheses about meanings of the terms, ignoring age or function cues. These and findings about acquisition of antonyms are discussed in terms of recent theorizing about lexical-meaning…

Children's understanding of the nature of polar terms and comparative terms between the polar opposites is discussed. (CHK)

This study examined the construction of a mobile with plastic construction straws in order to study the development of tree representations in a domain other than language. Subjects were 70 children between the ages of 3 and 11. (Author/JMB)

Two studies with first- and fifth-grade children in two learning tasks showed that preoperational children did not necessarily learn responses followed by a stimulus object previously instrumental in obtaining a reward, while postoperational subjects did. (Author/JMB)

Data from the application of word reading, letter recognition, memory and classification tasks to preschool children suggest that word learning ability is more closely tied to cognitive development than is alphabet knowledge and that reading readiness assessment might profit from applying a word learning task. (MB)

Separate analyses of five-, six- and seven-factor solutions for the first 168 Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory item responses from a large unselected sample of public mental health patients revealed close correspondence with the six factors derived by Overall, Hunter, and Butcher. (Author)

This study focused on the kinds of cognitive behaviors preschool and kindergarten children engage in while playing in a solitary, parallel, associative or cooperative manner. The effects of socio-economic status, developmental level, and the use of specific materials on social and cognitive levels of play are discussed. (BD)

Sensitivity to logical contradiction, as manifested by surprise reaction to the Jastrow illusion, was investigated in 30 nonretarded children, 30 educable mentally retarded (EMR) children equated for chronological age, and 30 EMR children equated for mental age. (Author)

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that coding used for recall is a dynamic process that changes in accordance with operational structures. Fifty male and female university students participated in two task sessions: (1) Formal operations and recall and (2) recall one month later. Significant correlations supported the basic…

Compares semantic uses of mental state words by children four and a half to five years old. Suggests that children's linguistic and cognitive capacities can be influenced a great deal by subtle situational factors and that the effects vary according to the child's cultural background. (AEW)

Three experiments explored the development of formal logical reasoning between Grades 4 and 12 and the role of semantic content in the solution of Wason's (1966) selection task problems. Results suggest that formal logical reasoning is not generally present during the fourth or sixth grades and that formal logical competence becomes available in…

Effects of maltreatment were examined in three domains suggested by attachment theory: relationships with novel adults, effectance motivation, and cognitive maturity. Three samples of four- to eight-year-old children were studied: 93 maltreated children, 67 demographically matched nonmaltreated childen, and 30 nonmaltreated middle-class children.

Vocal and object-directed behaviors of parents and infants were examined according to the social-construction view of development. Interactions of 66 infant-parent dyads were observed. Normative changes and stability of individual differences of joint-action variables and the relation of these variables to 30-month cognitive-development status…