Students in grades two, four, six, and college sorted abstract visual patterns that varied both in amount of contour and in type of visual organization (unstructured, simple symmetries, multiple symmetries, and rotational). Results suggested that children attend to both amount of contour and visual organization, but that attention to visual…

Two experiments investigated relationships between state anxiety, memory processes, and children's performance on problem-solving tasks. Participants were second and sixth graders in a private elementary school in Redlands, California. In both experiments, subjects responded to three training and eight test problems presented in the introtact…

Tests the hypothesis that habituation of attention to irrelevant information can account for within-task improvement in selective attention--that children who are preexposed to stimuli that will later be irrelevant in a speeded classification task will experience less interference than children not given the opportunity to habituate. (HOD)

Examined whether reading disabled children differed in the utilization of rules in a paired associate learning task. In two experiments, children were assigned to one of three conditions: (a)nonrule, (b)consistent rule, or (c)inconsistent rule. When present, the rule was based on semantic opposites. (Author/NH)

Evaluated the effects of stimulus complexity and rule usage on a visual perspective-taking task administered to preschoolers, first, third, and fifth graders, and adults. Errors decreased with age, and more errors occurred with the more complex visual arrays. Very young children could not reliably match a photograph to a physical array. (Author/RH)

Two experiments examine the sorts of cues that might be available to facilitate children's ability to discriminate between memories for their own actions. Results suggest that the differences in discrimination performance demonstrate the importance of kinesthetic cues and visible consequences for children's memory discrimination. (Author/RWB)

Twenty male and 20 female first graders were trained in a paired-associates (PA) learning task to test the hypothesis that instructions to generate interactive mental images of word referents and interactive imagery training administered prior to PA learning facilitate cued recall. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of the following five…

Two experiments with 167 first-, third-, and fifth-grade children revealed age-related changes in the composition of natural categories. Categorization was investigated via perceptual similarities of objects and conceptual similarities of superordinate classes. The free-classification paradigm (Garner, 1974) was adapted to natural categories,…

Investigates whether dyslexic children use word identification processes which are qualitatively different from those used by normal readers at the same stage of reading acquisition. Results suggest that dyslexics and normal readers use essentially the same processes to recognize words, but may differ in knowledge of correspondence rules. (RWB)

Focuses on differences occurring with age and reading skill in the use of phonemic codes in short-term retention tasks where stimuli were presented visually. Subjects were groups of average readers in grades two, four, and six; superior readers in grade four; and disabled readers in grades four and six from three public schools. (Author/RH)

Two experiments investigated perceptual primacy of dimensional and similarity relations in stimulus classifications of younger and older subjects. Results support a differential-sensitivity view of perceptual development which asserts that individuals at all ages primarily perceive and use separate relations. (RWB)

Two experiments examine whether the encoding of location meets criteria defining an automatic process. Automatic processes are not expected to show developmental changes beyond an early age. They appear to be unrelated to intelligence level and unaffected by instructions. Results support Hasher and Zack's automaticity hypothesis. (RWB)