The aim of the present study was to test the cue-association hypothesis in young children's simultaneous discrimination learning. The study consisted of three experiments (Experiment I, II, III). Experiments I and II tested the assumption that the more overtraining Ss were given, the more firmly a cue-association between stimuli of two independent discrimination tasks was established from the cue-association hypothesis.
In Experiment I, a 2×4 factorial design was used, which incorporated reversal shift types (W and P) and degrees of overtraining (0, 12, 24, and 36 trials). Ss were 64 young children (4; 8years old). The main results were as follows: (1) Group W, in which both tasks were reversed, showed a tendency for reversal learning on_??_-_??_task to become faster as amount of overtraining increased, but Group P, in which_??_-_??_task was reversed, but _??_-_??_task was unreversed, showed a tendency for reversal learning on_??_-_??_task to become slower as the amount of overtraining increased.(2) Group P showed a tendency for errors on the unreversal task to increase as the amount of overtraining increased.
In experiment 11, Ss were 32 young children (4; 11 years old). The main results were as follows: (1) Group OT-O took significantly more trials to criterion than Groups OT-12, 0T-24, and OT-36 in shift learning, in which Ss were concurrently trained on two new pairs of stimuli: one pair of stimuli consisted of a positive stimulus of_??_-_??_task and a negative one of_??_-_??_task. and another of a positive stimulus of_??_-_??_task and a negative one of_??_-_??_task. But there were nondifferences among these three groups (OT-12, 0T-24, OT-36).(2) Group OT-O made fewer correct responses on the test than other three groups, but there were nondifferences among the other three groups.
In experiment 111, it was investigated how responses to a positive stimulus (S+) and a negative one (S-) change at criterion and following overtraining in simultaneous single task discrimination learning. A 4×2 factorial design was used, which incorporated transfer types (PC, NC, RPPC, RNNC) and degrees of overtraining (O and 24 trials). Ss were 64 young children (4;11 years old). The main results were as follows: (1) The transfer learning of Group NC, in which the positive stimulus was retained, and the negative one was replaced by new stimulus, and Group PC, in which the negative stimulus was retained, and the positive one was replaced by new stimulus, were significantly facilitated by overtraining.(2) Groups PC and NC took significantly fewer trials than Groups RPPC, in which the positive stimulus was reversed and the negative one was replaced by new stimulus (as a positive stimulus), and RNNC, in which the negative stimulus was reversed and the positive one was replaced by new stimulus (as a negative stimulus) under the overtraining condition. There were nondifferences in the trials to criterion between Groups PC and NC, and between Groups RPPC and RNNC under the overtraining condition.(3) Correct responses on the test in every group increased as a result of overtraining.(4) There were nondifferences in the correct responses on the test among these four groups under the overtraining condition.
These results demonstrated that a cue-association, established during overtraining, became stronger as amount of overtraining increased, and that the stimulus control of the positive stimulus on discrimination performance became equal to one of the negative stimulus as a result of overtraining, and that ORE in single discrimination task learning situation could be thoroughly explained by the cueassociation hypothesis.

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Developmental psycholinguistic investigation based on the Chomsky's generative theory (1957) has two purposes:
1. to record and analyse the utterances by child for the purpose of clarifying his competence.
2. to present the generative grammar adequate to competence.
Focusing on the No.2 issue, Schlesinger (1971a, 1971b) presented a unique grammar, the Grammar of Realization Rules. In order to investigate the Schlesinger's grammar, especially his “position rules of agent, action, and direct object”, two studies were conducted. The first study dealt with the first phase word combinations by one Japanese boy aged 2;1-2;8. Main results were as follows.
The general trend of word order did not always support Schlesinger's grammar. But in some verbs the word order had its individual order.
In a second study the utterances of five Japanese children aged between 2;5-3;9 were recorded and analysed. Main results were as follows.
The total results of five children supported Schlesinger's grammar. But the nesults of each child did not always support Schlesinger's grammar.

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The aims of our follow up observational study are to clarify the transition from prelinguistic communication to early language, and to show how dependent the development of verbal behaviour is upon the nature of the interaction which takes place between mother and child from the early months. Over a 22-month period, fortnightly, observations were made of 8 mothers and their firstborn children (2-23 months old) as they interacted at home, spontaneously and in semistructured situations. Maternal and child behaviours were recorded by timesampling method on the observation checklist consisting of 40 maternal and 65 child categories of behaviour. Data have been grouped into two-month age periods.
In the present paper, we approached the topic of person and object in the development of communicative behaviour from two points of view: how “selfobject-person relation” was established and how it was used to further the dyadic interaction. Data was analyzed in terms of (a) frequency of child categories of behaviour: eye directions (FIG. 1, 2), arm and hand movements (FIG. 3), suckings (FIG. 4), vocalizations (FIG. 7) and frepuency of maternal categories of behaviour in play situations (FIG. 5, 6); (b) co-occurence of maternal or child categories of behaviour with each of the following child categories of behaviour: looking at mother, looking at object, looking at object held by self, touching mother, holding object and handling object (TABLE 3 to 8).
It was demonstrated that “self-object-person relation” was established during 8-9 and 10-11 months of age; that is to say, interest of the child with physical objects and his acts of communication addressed to persons were combined systematically. In the previous 6 months, complex changes took place: at 2-3 months, reactions to persons were more frequent than reactions to objects, and these two reactions were not well differentiated, whereas at 4-5 and 6-7 months, reactions to persons and objects were differentiated with increased interest in exploring objects. During 12-13 to 18-19 months, the child showed improved “self-object-person relation” accompanied by intentional vocalizations. Finally, at 20-21 and 22-23 months, the child began to share their knowledge or intentions about objects with others by means of words. Moreover, the analysis of play situations revealed especially the role of mother in the development of child communicative behaviour described above.

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Japanese orthography is of two types, kana and kanji. Kana is phonogram, and kanji is considered as idiogram. The present experiments were conducted with the purpose of examining differences of functions in regard to verbal materials in Japanese orthography. Verbal materials in experiments were of several single letters (kana and kanji), each corresponding to one-syllable sound; kana corresponding to the used kanji was of one syllable (phonem) without a porticular meaning, and kanji was of one syllable and one meaning.
The results of experiments were as follows. 1) In preliminary examination, the subjects were required to read a list of kana or kanji (100 letters) as fast as they could. It was found that reading kana was faster than kanji. The results suggested that as kana had just a single coding, there was linking of several letters into single unit or a string of the pronounceable letters, but as kanji had multi-coding (phonetic and semantic), there was less linking.
2) EXP. I investigated which was easier to recognize, kana or kanji. A learning list of 10 letters was made together with a test list of 5 letters of old items and 51etters of new items. In recognition task, kanji was found to be better than kana. The present studies suggested that semantic information was much more effective than phonemic information in achieving correct recognition, since more features were involved and each collection of features was highly distinctive.
3) In EXP. II, the study was to clarify the phonemic and semantic information processes in STM or LTM by free recall task. In method 1, material was of 6 lists of 10 letters (kana or kanji), and in method 2, 4 lists of 16 letters. Free recall tasks consisted of the presence or absence of delay after presentation of stimulus. In immediate recall (STM), kana was better than kanji, but in delayed recall (LTM), kanji was better than kana. When paticular phonemic code in kanji was selected by instruction, kana and kanji had the same result.
Results indicated that in STM, when the letters were encoded in terms of its phonemic features, it was better recalled than when it was encoded in terms of the semantic features; in LTM, semantic information was better recalled than phonemic information. The present study suggested the importance of S's strategy in processing of letters' information.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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