Showing papers on "Verbal reasoning published in 1979"

Developmental Patterns in the Solution of Verbal Analogies. Technical Report No. 3. Cognitive Development Series.

Abstract: This research sought to trace developmental patterns in the solution of verbal analogies, especially with respect to the development of the ability to recognize higher-order analogical relations. Particular aims of the investigation were (a) to provide new developmental tests of a componential theory of analogical reasoning (Sternberg, 1977a, 1977b; Sternberg & Rifkin, 1979); (b) to identify strategy changes during the transition from midchildhood (grade 3) to adulthood (college); (c) to compare the development of reasoning across five different verbal relations; and (d) to validate a new method of isolating component cognitive processes, the "method of stemsplitting," which can be applied to global reasoning performance. Twenty subjects in each of grades three, six, nine, and in college were tested in their relative abilities to solve 180 verbal analogies based on five different verbal relations (synonymy, antonymy, category membership, linear ordering, ?unctional) and presented in three different formats (varying in the number of terms in the analogy stem versus the number in the analogy options). Both response time and error data were collected. It was found that (a) the componential theory was successful in accounting for response-time data at all grade levels and error data at all but the college level; (b) third-graders and sixth-graders used a strategy that differed in key respects from the strategy used by ninth-graders and college students; (c) antonymous and functional relations were easier to process at all levels than were synonymous, category membership, and linear ordering relations; aad (d) the new method of isolating component cognitive processes provided-new insights into age-related strategy changes in the solution of verbal analogies.

Psychological consequences of blunt head injury.

Abstract: 89 severely closed head injured cases were tested on measures of verbal learning, and verbal and nonverbal intelligence, and their performance was compared with that of 30 orthopaedic cases. Head injured cases had severe deficits on all the tests. Severity of injury (judged by post-traumatic amnesia duration) was significantly related to poor performance on the learning and nonverbal intelligence tests, but not on the verbal intelligence test. The effect of injury on the family was studied in a further group of 35 head injured cases, showing that family burden within six months of injury was related to the presence of childish behaviour and loss of interest in the patient, together with other behavioural and affective changes. Physical deficits were not significant in this respect.

Further Examination of Formal Operational Reasoning Abilities.

Abstract: ROBERGE, JAMES J., and FLEXER, BARBARA K. Further Examination of Formal Operational Reasoning Abilities. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1979, 50, 478-484. 3 paper-and-pencil formal operations tests were administered to groups of eighth graders and adults. These measures provided scores that indicated each subject's level of reasoning for 3 second-order operations (i.e., combinations, proportionality, and propositional logic). Analyses of correct responses showed that adults scored significantly higher than eighth graders on the combinations and proportionality tests and that the interdependence of the 3 formal operational reasoning abilities was minimal. The results also suggested that the order of acquisition of these formal operations skills was combinations -) propositional logic --) proportionality. Implications for Piaget's theory of formal operations are discussed.

Relationship of music ability and intelligence to auditory and visual conservation of the kindergarten child

Abstract: The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship of music ability and intelligence to auditory and visual conservation of the kindergarten child. Observations took place in two kindergartens with a total sample of 34 children. The Simons Measurements of Music Listening Skills (SMMLS) was used to determine the child's music ability; the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) tested the child's verbal intelligence. Two criterion tests, the Musical Tasks Test and the Piagetian Tasks Test, were used to measure the child's auditory and visual conservation abilities. Results revealed no significant relationship between auditory and visual conservation. The observed correlation between verbal intelligence and visual conservation, as measured by the PPVT and the Piagetian Tasks Test, was nonsignificant. Music ability was significantly related to auditory conservation. The total regression model, which included variables of music ability, intelligence, and the interaction of music ability/intelligence,...

Qualitative Changes in Verbal Reasoning during Middle and Late Childhood.

Abstract: BEREITER, CARL; HiD, SUZANNE; and DIMITROFF, GEORGE. Qualitative Changes in Verbal Reasoning during Middle and Late Childhood. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1979, 50, 142-151. 3 experiments are reported, based on the hypothesis that qualitative changes in verbal reasoning emerge, not from the conclusions children draw, but from what they accept as conclusive evidence. Children played a game in which winning depended on correctly deciding whether to draw conclusions from verbal arguments or to get more evidence. Second graders, as compared to sixth graders, showed a significant tendency both to draw conclusions from logically irrelevant evidence and to defer judgment when given logically conclusive evidence, while nevertheless drawing conclusions consistent with the evidence given. When definiteness of rules was varied, not until grade 8 did children respond discriminatively to qualifiers such as "usually." Second graders often drew conclusions from rules alone, with no evidence, confusing conditional statements with affirmatives or importing premises from outside. These immature tendencies were found to be intensified in a realistic, ego-related context. Evidently previous verbal reasoning research failed to reveal qualitative age differences because it presented children only with logically connected arguments.

Language Variables Related to Reading Ability of Children with Verbal Deficits.

Abstract: This study examined verbal reception and verbal mediation skills of children with low verbal/high performance WISC profiles. Of specific interest was the identification of possible sources of language impairment and the relationship between language variables and reading achievement. Eighty-five children in second through fifth grades (ages 8–11) with low verbal/high performance WISC profiles were evaluated, using cognitive tasks requiring verbal reception or verbal mediation strategies without requiring vocal responses. The results support the use of a verbal mediation hypothesis in the diagnostic evaluation of children with verbal deficit. Verbal mediation skills appear to be closely associated with reading ability, while the verbal reception task provided little useful diagnostic information for verbally deficient children.

Communication and Reasoning Skills of Deaf and Hearing Signers.

Abstract: Six tests of intellectual performance were administered to 25 deaf and 21 hearing adult signers. The two groups were not significantly different on tests of Lip Reading and Reception of Signed English but the hearing subjects were superior on tests of non-verbal reasoning and perceptual speed. The hearing were greatly superior on a test of verbal reasoning.

Analogical Reasoning as a Discovery Logic.

Abstract: : Reasoning by analogy is an important means of generating hypotheses about new situations Phychological research on analogical reasoning has been limited to the format of mathematical proportions However, this treatment of analogical reasoning is not consistent with the aspect of analogical reasoning that generates hypotheses A more viable approach is taken by philosophers of science such as Hesse (1966), whose work is used to provide a description of a psychological process of discovery The key elements of this description include (1) selecting the analogue; (2) comparison of analogues to establish points of correspondance; (3) classification of correspondances into similarities, dissimilarities and neutral features, and (4) refining causal descriptions (Author)

Correlations between the Quick Test Forms 1 and 3 and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test for children and youth with learning problems.

Abstract: The Quick Test, Forms 1 and 3 and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test were administered to 94 children and youth (58 boys and 36 girls) who were referred to a clinic for suspected learning problems. Chronological ages for the sample ranged from 7–4 to 14–5, with a mean of 12–8. Analysis showed no significant differences between the means of the boys and girls on the scores of Quick Test 1 and 3. A pervasive pattern of strong positive correlations was found between the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and Quick Test, Forms 1 and 3; and between the two forms of the Quick Test. The findings indicate that the Quick Test provides a reasonable estimate of conventional verbal intelligence as well as being very stable even with populations whose intelligence test performance is often highly variable.

Word Association: Verbal Intelligence

Abstract: Three varimax factors in which verbal intelligence loaded were identified for several diverse groups including schizophrenics. Only paradigmatic associates loaded on these factors: general paradigmatic vs faults typical of failures to follow the instructions to give a word, denotative vs idiosyncratic, and connotative-adjectival. Although they were correlated negatively with intelligence, syntagmatic associates formed no cohesive pattern of common variance with intelligence. These relationships were not evident from associates to the familiar unambiguous words of the Kent-Rosanoff list. Highly ambiguous familiar words that have many meanings resulted in material relationships with intelligence. In adults, the type, extent of, and persistence of the childhood syntagmatic to paradigmatic shifts appears to be a function of verbal intelligence.

Cultural Change and Mathematical Thought.

Abstract: Summary. Sixty children of Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin who had spent all their school lives in England, 60 who had arrived within the past three years and 60 British children were randomly selected in two age groups (10/11 years and 12/13 years) from the pupils of 22 schools in 11 towns in the industrial north-west of England. Individual mathematical tasks called for ‘relational thinking’ rather than instrumental technique. No significant difference was found in the ability to abstract the nature of a pattern, to use this abstraction in the face of pattern disturbance or in the ability to generalise. The ability to employ hypotheses in the formulation of a number concept was significantly affected by age. It was only when overt verbal reasoning in English was required that length of exposure to host culture proved to be a significant factor. An interaction between length of stay and sex had a strong effect upon the quality of hypothesis orientated questioning in the English language. Asian girls who had completed a full British primary education showed marked superiority over their male counterparts at age 10/11 and marginal superiority at 12/13.

On the factual basis of moral reasoning

Abstract: (1979). On the factual basis of moral reasoning. Australasian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 57, No. 2, pp. 157-162.