The Japanese Journal of Educational Psychology
Online ISSN : 2186-3075
Print ISSN : 0021-5015
ISSN-L : 0021-5015
Volume 27, Issue 2
Displaying 1-8 of 8 articles from this issue
  • Japan-U. S. Comparison on a Referential Communication Task
    Nahomi Miyake, Hiroshi Azuma
    1979Volume 27Issue 2 Pages 75-84
    Published: June 30, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This study was a part of a U. S.-Japan joint project, titled “A cross-cultural study of the influence of socializing agents upon cognitive functioning, communication styles, and educability in children,” co-directed by R. D. Hess of Stanford University and H. Azuma of the University of Tokyo. This paper surveyed the stylistic measures of maternal communication with children and their relation with measures of children's cognitive development one and two years later.
    Sixty-four U. S. mothers and fifty-five Japanese mothers were observed on a referential communication game. The mother's task was to explain one target picture among four similar ones so that her four-year-old child could choose it from the same set of pictures. The protocols of their interaction were analyzed in four general categories:“preparation” or how the mothers start their explanation,“description” or how they explain each target picture,“feedback” or what kind of feedback they give to the child's errors, and “re-explanation” or how they re-explain the target after those errors.
    1) Internal correlatians.
    In the category of “feedback,” there seemed to be three specific styles in the U. S.; to negate child's errors explicitly, to explain how errors were different from the target, or to give no feedback. It was speculated that the U. S. mothers used explanation to avoid negative expressions. In Japan, only two styles were identified; to give feedback (either negation or explanation), or not.
    Giving diverse explanation was related to repetitive re-explanations in the U. S., while it was related to modified re-explanations in the U. S., while it was related to modified re-explanations in Japan. This suggested that there could be two culturally different ways to pursue the task: U. S. mothers tended to explain the target fully before they had their children choose it and Japanese mothers tended to modify their explanations according to children's errors.
    2) Correlations with child's communication-game performance.
    Structured preparation showed good effects only in Japan. In both countries, modifying original expla nations after errors was related to better performance. Totally renewed explanation was correlated with poorer performance in the U. S., while repetitive re-explanation showed the same negative effect in Japan.
    3) Correlations with child's cognitive development measures.
    In Japan, giving organized pre-viewing remarks seemed to have a possibility to help children develop cognitive skills. In the U. S., the descriptive explanation style seemed effective. This variable of descriptiveness showed the clearest cultural differences be tween the two countries. Giving explicit negative feedback to errors was negatively correlated with cogntive measures in both countries. As for re-explanation styles, Japanese data showed a complex pattern; the modifying type was correlated with higher spatial and numerical abilities whereas the renewing type was with higher verbal ability. In the U. S., the renewing type showed general negative pattern. Verbal ability seemed to be rather promoted by the modifying type.
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  • Motomichi Goto
    1979Volume 27Issue 2 Pages 85-93
    Published: June 30, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The two following experiments were carried out in order to point out that earlier studies of social reinforcement were defective in the way of presenting reinforcement, and to state that the social context should be chosen as a determinant of social reinforcement effectiveness. The manipulations in each experiment had much in common. First, day-nursery boys and girls were subjected to a 10-minute treatment session, in which they received the reinforcing stimuli either twice (deprivation) or 16 times (satiation) from a male experimeter. This was followed by a discrimination test made of 75 trials, in which the same reinforcing stimuli as in treatment session were given to all correct responses by the experimenter, At the end of the test, they were inquired about their awareness of response-reinforcement contingencies. The measure analyzed was the number of correct responses in the test.
    In experiment I, the partial replication of Massari (1971) study was carried out to point out that earlier studies of social deprivation-satiation were defective in the way of presenting reinforcement. Forty subjects were instructed to read picture books in treatment session, in which they received the reinforcing stimuli, either “orikou-san-dane”(“good child” in Japanese) or a sound of bell, on the fixed schedule. This was followed by a discrimination test. The dependent measure for the four experiment groups was subjected to an analysis of variance. The results of the analysis showed no significant effects for the type of reinforcement (social-nonsocial) and the treatment (deprivation-satiation). It was discussed that the mechanical presentation of reinforcement in treatment session caused these results. And it was proposed that social reinforcement, in order to find the social deprivation-satiation relation should be presented in social context, and that the procedure in treatment session should be modified.
    Experiment II was carried out to show that social context was an important factor of social reinforcement effectiveness. One hundred and thirty-six subjects took part in playing with building blocks in a 10-minute treatment session, either with an experimenter (social interaction condition) or alone (no interaction condition). In this session, two-thirds of them received the stimulus words on the fixed schedule, but one-third of them received no words. This was followed by the test. In interaction condition, only boys made more correct responses in the deprivation group than in the satiation group. Among girls in interaction condition, Ss of the satiation group tended to make fewer responses than those in no word condition. These results suggested that the social deprivation-satiation hypothesis was supported only when reinforcement was given in the context of social situation, not when it was given according to the method used in earlier studies.
    In a general discussion, it was pointed out that social reinforcement ought to be presented in a social context.
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  • Akira Nakagaki
    1979Volume 27Issue 2 Pages 94-103
    Published: June 30, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The present study was aimed at investigating patterns of development of combination operation. Subjects were eighty 5 to 12-year-old children and ten 15-year-old junior high school students. Given various combination tasks, they were examined from the viewpoint of practice of combination and comprehension of combination operation. From the former viewpoint, they weve asked to make all possible pairs or triplets from four to five kinds of piles. From the latter viewpoint, they were questioned on conservation of total number of combination and symmetrical relation of combination operation.
    Following points were suggested from the present study.
    (1) As for practice of combination, the present study confirmed the findings of Inhelder and Piaget (1955).
    (2) As for comprehension of combination operation, three main stages of its development were distinguished. The first stage consisted of nonconservation of total number of combination. the second, of its conservation and non-symmetrical relation of combination operation and the third, of its symmetrical relation.
    (3) As for the interrelation of practice and comprehension of combination operation, it was suggested that systematic success of its practice preceded developmentally comprehension of symmetrical relation of its operation as regards combination of pairs, but that the latter preceded the former as regards to combination of triplets.
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  • Yoko Sato, Shohji Sato
    1979Volume 27Issue 2 Pages 104-110
    Published: June 30, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of the present study was to assess the cognitive modes to vicarious reinforcement in preschool children. It was assumed that there were two kinds of cognitive modes to use the information carried by vicarious reinforcement; the task-oriented and the model-oriented cognitive modes. The model-oriented mode referred to the one which the observer determines whether the model was approved or disapproved by the experimenter on the basis of vicarious reinforcement given to the model and decides to make or to avoid the matching responses to the model. On the other hand, the task-oriented mode referred to the one which the observer attended carefully to which one of the model s responses were reinforced or not and matched his responses only to the model's reinforced responses.
    Sixty preschool children (mean age was 5.5 years) were served as observers. They observed the demonstration in which an adult male model chose only instances of animal (or food) for a series of 18 commodity pairs. Immediately after the model demonstration, they were given the Performance Test which were designed to assess their spontaneous matching responses to the model. Then they were given the Acquisition Test which required them to recall the model s responses.
    The children were assigned to one of five arrangement conditions of vicarious reinforcement. In the 100% VR condition and the NVR condition, the observers watched whether the model was reinforced or not on all his demonstration trials, respectively. And the observers in the Random 50% VR condition were exposed to a model reinforced randomly for their choices on half the number of demonstration trials. The subjects assigned to the First-half VR condition observed the model who was given reinforcements only for the first nine choices in a series of 18 trials. In_the Second-half VR condition, the model demonstrated his choices with reinforcements given only the latter nine trials.
    The main findings were as follows.
    (1) Subjects in the First-half VR and the Random 50% VR conditions made significantly fewer matching responses than those in the Second-half VR, NVR, and 100% VR conditions.
    (2) For the Acquisition Test, no significant differences were found among the experimental conditions, indicating that the arrangements of vicarious reinforcements did not influence the subject's acquisition of model's responses.
    (3) The scores on the Acquisition Test were significantly higher than those on the Performance Test in the First-half VR and the Random 50% VR conditions. This suggests that the observers in these conditions inhibited to imitate the modeled responses to some extent.
    (4) For the three 50% VR conditions, no significant difference in matching responses was found between the reinforced and the nonreinforced model's responses. It indicated that the observers did not attempt to discriminate between the vicariously reinforced and non-reinforced responses.
    It became clear from the present results that the preschool children were likely to perceive a vicarious reinforcement by a model-oriented cognitive mode.
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  • Yoko Yamada
    1979Volume 27Issue 2 Pages 111-120
    Published: June 30, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Infants behaviors to the eight novel objects were recorded by V. T. R. They were analyzed with vision, contents of manipulation (vigorous manipulation with arms and hands(vertical shake, horizontal shake, hit drop), gentle manipulation with fingers (finger, pinch, scratch), oral behaviors (mouth, appropriate manipulation)) and other behaviors. The Ss were 66, 7-, 9-, 12-month old infants.
    Simple objects, viz.(1) Ring,(2) Bar,(3) Spoon,(4) Cup were manipulated with arms and mouthed more than complex objects, viz.(5) Figure Box,(6) Rainbow Spring,(7) Uneven Basket,(8) Decorative Rattle. Complex objects were visually regarded and manipulated with fingers more than simple objects in all age groups.
    Among complex objects, visually complex objects,(5),(6) were visually regarded and manipulated with arms more than tactually complex objects (7),(8).
    The latter were manipulated with fingers and received emotional responses (vocalization, look at the mother, being afraid) more than the former.
    The 9-and 12-month old infants had longer visual regard per response, larger percentage of looking within one trial, and longer manipulative latencies than 7-month old infants. And the total manipulation time decreased with age.
    The manipulations with arms decreased and the manipulations with fingers increased with the age. The latter had larger percentage of responses of visual regard than the former.
    Males had longer visual regard per response, total manipulation and vigorous manipulation with arms than females.
    Oral behaviors decreased with the age. But regarding objects (3) and (4), mouthing of their special round parts increased with the age, and 12-month old infants began to manipulate them appropriately.
    Looking at the mother increased with the age, and 12-month old infants began to point or show the stimulus to the mother.
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  • An Experimental Examination of the Motivational Hypothesis on an Expectancy of Success
    Michiharu Tanaka
    1979Volume 27Issue 2 Pages 121-130
    Published: June 30, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The major purpose of this study was to investigate experimentally the motivational hypothesis of expectancy of success in mentally retarded children proposed by Zigler, et al. through several experimental studies. This motivational hypothesis was based on the assumption that mentally retarded children tend to have been experienced in ordinately high incidence of failure and hence have a lowered expect-ancy of reinforcement than do normal children of the same MA.
    In the present study, the experiment was designed to be divided into two experimental stages. In the first stage (Exp. I), the expectancy of success of retarded and normal children of the same MA was compared. In the second stage (Exp. II), about a month after Exp. I, both groups of normal and retarded children were experienced success or failure conditions and the effects of success-failure manipulation upon the expectancy of success in each group were investigated.
    In order to measure the degree of expectancy of success, this study employed a three-choice discrimination task (probability task) in which only one stimulus was partially reinforced, the other two yielding zero reinforcement. This study's rationale was that maximizing behavior should be more characteristics of the retarded child (failure condition) than the normal child (success condition) since they (failure condition) have come to expect and settle for lower degrees of success than have normal children (success condition).
    In Exp. I and Exp. II, subjects were 48 normal children and 48 retarded children matched on MA (MA, 7.8). In Exp. II, both groups of normal and retarded children in Exp. I were divided respectively into experimental groups equating CA, MA, IQ and the number of total correct responses of Exp. I. Success or failure conditions were set by the experimental manipulations based on individual's level of aspiration performing in experimental tasks. The degree of success-failure experience was manipulated according to the number of experimental tasks,: one experimental task group (a very low level of success or failure), three experimental tasks group (a high degree of success or failure). Two control groups did not receive any pretraining.
    The main results were as follows (Exp. I):
    1) Mentally retarded children displayed more maximizing behavior on the probability task than normal children of the same MA and less effective utilization of their cognitive resources (patterning, Win-shift and Lose-shift strategies).
    2) In both groups of normal and retarded children, the sex effect difference was not found on performance of the probability task.
    In the case of lengthier and more intense success failure manipulations (three expermental tasks group) of Exp. II, normal and retarded children revealed a significant effect of prior experience on the probability task. The main results were as follows (Exp. II);
    1) The retarded in the success condition showed a more right, middle, left, and left, middle, right patterns on the probability task than the other conditions, and the number was the same as those of MA matched normal children.
    2) The normal children in the failure condition showed maximizing behavior from middle period of trials to terminal period of trials on the probability task, less patterning and less shifting of responses.
    These results support the motivational hypothesis of expectancy of success by Zigler, et al. And there remains need of further investigation on some problems such as the cognitive process of problem solving on probability task and the individuals difference of failure experience in mentally retarded.
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  • Toru Watamaki
    1979Volume 27Issue 2 Pages 131-140
    Published: June 30, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In this paper, the non-imitated utterances of more than two words of a Japanes child, a girl named Fumi, were analysed to clarify the process of development of syntactico-semantic structures expressed in Japanese-speaking children's multiword utterances. The child's speech was taperecorded for 4 consecutive days, for 2 hours a day in ordinary everyday situations in her home. The recorded non-linguistic context was used in the interpretation of utterances. Multiword utterances were counted, separately each month, by means of the number of types, not tokens, of utterances. There were 997 non-imitated multiword utterances in her speech samples over a period of five months, age 20 to 24 months old (Pre-grammatical combinations such as “Mommy, went,” e. g., vocative +holophrase, were eliminated).
    The main results were as follows:
    1) The number of words contained in a multiword utterance and the frequency of multiword utterances increased as her age increased month by month.
    2) Clauses (e. g., utterances which consist of a semantic predicate with one or more arguments) containing a predicative verbal were more frequently than others (approximately 55%). Predicate nominal clauses were 10 to 12% at ages 21, 22, and 24 months, but their actual figures and percentages rose remarkably to 123, or 31% at 23 months. There were 82 adjectival clauses, 55 Kiteigo-Hikiteigo constructions (in English modifier-head nouns), mostly possesser-possessed, and 53 argument-argument constructions. Of the three-word clauses containing predicative verbal, argument-argu-ment-predicate constructions occured more frequently than argument-predicate constructions where an argument was expanded in a modifier-modified form.
    3) Every predicate verbal clause including one argument was classified into 35 syntactico-semantic structures. Classification of the semantic role of arguments introduced in this study was based mainly on Suzuki's (1972b). Some constructions such as agent and act, object and act, subject of essive and verb, object of demand and verb, nonagentive and verb emerged early and occurred with high frequency, but other constructions emerged early, yet occurred with low frequency, such as location and verb, quotation and verb, and experiencer and verb. The most dominant constructions were agent-act and object-act. Some cases did not occur in this period, namely, object of attitude, object of condition, time of start or finish, duration, cause, and extent. New cases, for instance, instrument, comitative, conferrer, beneficiary, and factitive entered the child's speech later.
    4) The objective case combined of transitive clauses with one argument happened earlier than did the agentive case. In the case of transitive oblique clauses, cases with the feature of [+directional] occurred more frequently than other cases.
    5) Of all cases with the feature of [+directional], the case with the [+goal] occurred more frequently than the case with [+source]. As for circonstant, the cases signifying space occured earlier and more frequently than the cases signifying time. Of all locational cases, the case with [+directional] (‘to’ or ‘from’) occurred more frequently than [-directional](‘in/at’).
    6) Generally speaking, in the constructions emerging early, the number of kinds of cases which combined with a particular verb was restricted to about one, but two or more were seen in the constructions that emerged later. Moreover, from the first one they often took the form of a construction including one predicate and two cases. Old cases combined with other old or new ones and made longer strings.
    Methods of the analysis introduced in this study would provide us with methods for knowing the order in which Japanese-speaking children acquired how to construct early utterances of various kinds, although we analysed only child's utterances.
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  • [in Japanese]
    1979Volume 27Issue 2 Pages 141-145
    Published: June 30, 1979
    Released on J-STAGE: February 19, 2013
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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