Two experiments were carried out in order to investigate the effects of modeling on children's moral judgments.
The purposes of the experiment I were (1) to replicate the results of Cowan et al.(1969) which showed the different effects of the counteracting adult models between the Ss who expressed subjective ju dgment on pretest and those who expressed objective one; and (2) to examine whether the Ss who expressed objective judgment could be classified into the two types based on King's test (1971), i, e., those who can recognize the actor's intention in everyday events and those who cannot, and to examine the difference of the modeling effects among them. The Ss were the children between the ages of 4 and 9. Based on the scores of the individually administered pretest of moral judgments, the Ss were assigned to one of the two experimental conditions. In the experimental treatment, the Ss who expressed objective judgments on the pretest were exposed to a model giving subjective judgments (up condition), while the Ss who expressed subjective judgments on the pretest were exposed to a model giving objective judgments (down condition). The model was always given verbal approval for judgments and the S was given verbal approval only when his judgment was at the opposite level to his judgments on the pretest. In each group, half of the Ss were given a posttest immediately after the experimental treatment and the other half were given a delayed posttest 2 weeks later. The results indicated that by modeling procedure it is possible to change from objective to subjective judgment (up condition), but that it is difficult to change in the opposite direction (down condition). The results also indicated that among the Ss who expressed objective judgments, those who recognized the actor's intention came to be able to express subjective judgments more than those who did not recognize it.
The purpose of the experiment II was to examine whether the Ss, who could not express subjective judgments and did not recognize the actor's intention, could be led to express subjective judgments by means of modeling procedure which enabled recognition of the actor's intention. The Ss were children between the ages of 4 and 6. Based on the pretest results, children who could not express subjective judgments and did not recognize the actor's intention were chosen. Two experimental conditions were set up: one was the condition easy for the recognition of the actor's intention (I condition) and the other was a standard one and it did not emphasize the actor's intention on modeling' procedure (N condition). The results indicated that it was possible to change from objective to subjective judgment by means of modeling procedure in both conditions, but that it was more effective in I condition than N condition.
These results were interpreted as indicating that the effects of modeling on children's moral judgments changed according to the Ss' level of recognition of intention and that recognition of the actor's intention was related to children's moral judgments.

View full abstract

The present study was designed to investigate the acquisition of Japanese “Joshis”, postpositional auxiliary words, in infants.
The subjects were 102 infants age 4, 5 and 6 years. They were asked to make oral compositions, looking at the presented pictures. Twenty-one pictures were presented. Fourteen of them were concrete objects, and the others were geometric figures.
The main results were as follows:(1) A group: developmental changes in the acquisition of Joshis were observed markedly between the ages of 4 and 5 years.
Kaku Joshi...NI, GA, O, DE, E
Kakari Joshi...WA, MO
Fuku Joshi...KA
Setsuzoku Joshi...TE, DE, KARA, NONI
Kantou Joshi...YO
(2) B group: developmental changes were observed markedly between the ages of 5 and 6 years.
Fuku Joshi...MADE
Setsuzoku Joshi...TO, NODE
(3) C group: the acquisition of Joshis developed gradually with age.
Kaku Joshi...TO, KARA, YA
Kantou Joshi...NE

View full abstract

According to Bartlett's hypothesis, remembering prose is a constructive process, in which meaningful material is stored in memory in schematic form, and recall is achieved by a process of reconstruction. The most recent research on constructive memory has focused on the effect of comprehension processes. However, there was little evidence to demonstrate that some advance organizers reflecting “story structure” or “connections between episodes in story” actually facilitated the comprehension and retention of prose passage or story.
In the present study, we attempted to manipulate presentation or nonpresentation of an advance organizer and to assess its importance for an understanding of story retention. The subjects were 42 kindergarten children (mean CA: 6-2) and 42 third-grade children (mean CA: 9-3). The stimulus story was 33 long sentences containing seven episodes. The Ss were randomly assigned to one of three conditions containing two experimental (ordered and at random) and one controlled. In the ordered condition, 7 line-drawings expressing 7 episodes were placed in front of Ss in the order they occupied in the story, and the Ss in the random condition received the same set of stimuli in random order.
The experiment consisted of three parts:(a) a frame-formation session in which Ss were given either in order or in random ordor 7 line-drawings as an advance organizer,(b) an immediate test session containing comprehension test and free recalls of episodes, and (c) a delay test (3 days later) employing only free recalls. The story was told following a frame-formation session.
The main results were as follows:
(1) Although the scores on development, ending and cause for kindergarten children were very similar to those of third-grade children, the latter understood the part of setting more than the former (see, FIG. 1). These were interpreted to suggest that even 6 year-old children were sensitive to the structures of stories and have schemata organizing retrieval in a fashion similar to the elder children.
(2) The main effect of serial position was significant, indicating that the mean percentage of correct episodes at primacy and recency positions was higher than that of serial position 2-4. Moreover, the performance at primacy and recency positions (respectively,. 97;. 95) in immediate recall was very similar to the (respectively,. 95;. 93) delay recall (see FIG. 2). These were interpreted to show that when prose passage was stored in schematic form and recall was achieved by a process of reconstruction, the initial and end episodes were used as the point of departure.
(3) Third-grade children recalled the order of episodes more than kindergarten children (see TABLE4).
(4) On analysis of retention of the order, the interaction between Conditions and Immediate-Delay tests was significant at 10% level, indicating that the performance on the ordered condition was superior to both random order and control conditions in immediate test, but the performance on the three conditions in delay test was not different from each other (see FIG. 4). These results were interpreted to show that an advance organizer with logical sequences reflecting “story structure” or “connections between episodes in story” facilitated the comprehension and remembering of ordered relation in sequences.

View full abstract

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the developmental change of the rehearsal and organization effect on immediate and final recall in single trial recall learning.
Subjects were forty-five third graders (Exp. I) and forty-five college students (Exp. II). The Ss learned two lists (Exp. I) or four lists (Exp. II) of 20 items (line drawing of ordinary objects) made in four categories. Study-test method was used. In study trials each item was presented for one second by a slide projecter with four seconds interval in which Overt reheasal groups (O Gr.) were required to rehearse overtly; Covert rehearsal groups (C Gr.) were not given any instruction, and Minimal rehearsal groups (M Gr.) were asked to count numbers. Amount of recall and clustering were assessed in immediate free recall (IFR) and final constrained recall (FCR)
The main results were as follows.
IFR: Regarding the recall data in both age groups. the performance of O Gr. and C Gr. were significantly superior to M Gr. with no differece between the former two. In the amount of recall at recency portion, O Gr. showed higher performance than C Gr. in third graders, but there was no difference between two groups in college students. Regarding the clustering data, O Gr. and C Gr. showed greater amount of clustering than M Gr. in college students but there were no differences among the three groups in third graders. In O Gr. college students utilized more categories than third graders to rehearse items.
FCR: Serial position curves in all groups showed the highest in primacy portion and the lowest in recency portion. In both age groups O Gr. showed superior recall than M Gr. with no difference between former two. With the comparison between IFR and FCR, to instruct category names improved the middle portion recall of third graders but did not recency portion recall of both age groups (negative recency effect).
These results suggested that (1) the rehearsal during study trial enhanced both immediate and final recall,(2) college students engaged in elaborative rehearsal utilizing category names, and third graders did in maintenance rehearsal,(3) as the previous findings with non-category lists, the negative recency effect was observed with category lists.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract