Developmental Aspects of Incidental Learning in Retarded Children

Authors

Robert A. Fox, Marquette UniversityFollow
Frank E. Fulkerson, Western Illinois University

Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Format of Original

4 p.

Publication Date

6-1980

Publisher

Springer

Source Publication

Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society

Source ISSN

0090-5054

Abstract

One hundred and fourteen educable mentally retarded children divided equally into two groups by mental age (older vs. younger) were exposed to one of three different orienting instructions (incidental-semantic, intentional-control, or incidental-categorize) within an incidental learning paradigm. The experimental task consisted of 18 pictures representing six instances of each of three common taxonomic categories. Older subjects recalled significantly more pictures with better clustering than younger subjects. Subjects receiving incidental-categorize instructions recalled significantly more items and showed significantly more clustering than subjects receiving the other instructions. The superiority of the categorize condition was maintained during a 24-h follow-up session.

Comments

Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, Vol. 15, No. 6 (June 1980): 395-398. DOI.

Recommended Citation

Fox, Robert A. and Fulkerson, Frank E., "Developmental Aspects of Incidental Learning in Retarded Children" (1980). College of Education Faculty Research and Publications. 308.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/edu_fac/308