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The processes by which the young child recognizes and regenerates some invariant and organizational properties of language are discussed. In these processes the child conjoins and contrasts recurrent segments--perhaps a recurrent word--of the messages presented to him. After repeated exposure to messages containing a common segment, the child recognizes the invariant segment. Both the identification of meanings and the formation of classes can be explained on this basis. In the first section, language acquisition is discussed as an unadulterated process of activities with little consideration for the products and structures generated. Linguistic operations are compared with those in economy through the comparison of three stages in the development of monetary systems--the barter system, the coinage system and the debenture system--with three stages in the origin, development and study of language--the proto-language, the token language, and the interaction language. It is argued that the intellectual processes involved are roughly comparable to Piaget's three stages of cognitive development--the periods of sensory-motor activity, concrete operations and formal operations. In the second section, the acquisition of the semantic and syntactic organization of language is emphasized. All these acquisitions succeed through active operations by the child with and upon the relational information given. These operations consist of intersecting or composing, conjoining or aligning relational information. (Author/KM)

This paper discusses the development of structuralism in psychology, linguistics, mathematics, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology by citing theories supported by thinkers in all these fields. The contrast between structure (schema, pattern, gestalt) and function (activity, interaction, transformation) is used as the point of departure for the discussion. The author seeks to emphasize the mutual dependency of these two concepts as seen in more recent theories. Piaget's theories concerning development are discussed at length. Concluding remarks review the trends and options of modern psychology. (VM)

In the first section of this paper, the author analyzes concepts and theoretical issues found to be significant for the topics of investigation but neither sufficiently explicated nor fully incorporated into the studies to be described later. It is felt that much further work needs to be done in order to achieve such goals. In the second section, a cross-linguistic psychological analysis is described which contributes a prerequisite for the following, more complex investigations of bilingual behavior. In the third section, these investigations are reported which explore implicit and explicit response tendencies in intralingual and interlingual performance. In the fourth section, psychological difficulties in translation, especially problems of rearrangements or interlingual transformations, are investigated. (Author/AMM)

Inadequacies in most life-span developmental studies are emphasized. A typical cross-sectional comparison of a sample of older adults' performances on a battery of measures revealed that non-surviving subjects and those who refused to be retested 5 and 10 years later scored consistently below retestees. These results point to a heterogeneity in the aging population and to biases in the sampling process, and suggest the need to define the population more specifically. Analysis of scores by going backwards in age starting with the time of death suggests the occurrence of lower limits in performance. Decline with age is attributed to a sudden drop in performance occurring within 5 years prior to subjects' deaths (terminal drop). Throughout adulthood, performances of long-term survivors are unchanged. The decline with age usually observed is attributed to the increasing number of subjects exhibiting terminal drops. The authors conclude that such psychological data, which indicate changing conditions of the biological organism, must be analyzed with regard to changing societal conditions. (TL)

The report consists of 3 parts: (1) a quantitative analysis of the history of psychological gerontology based upon the reconstructed flow of written information in reference networks; (2) a supplement to this analysis which focuses especially on "underdeveloped" areas not represented in the networks; and (3) a wide-ranging inquiry into contemporary concepts of research and theory, communication and education and, more generally, our concept of man and society. The author's search uncovers an enormous amount of wasted research effort and a concurrent lack of investigations of significant issues. As a result, he recommends: (l) a shift in emphasis from accumulation to integration in data collection; (2) implementing this shift through an overhaul of our system of higher education ; (3) new applications of theories and techniques aimed at coping with information overload such as that which exists in psychological gerontology; and (4) a reformulated model of man, based on his dialectic, developmental interdependence with the changing society. In essence, the author feels that higher educational competitiveness has resulted in information overloads which support one or another fragmented models of man and society. (Author/TL)

Arguments for an extension of Piaget's theory of cognitive development have been derived from philosophical and historical considerations of modern natural science. Implicit contradictions, which characterize these sciences as well as common thought, can be systematically apprehended only through a dialectic reinterpretation. The dialectic basis of Piaget's theory is expressed in his assimilation-accommodation paradigm, but development is interpreted as a continuing alienation from this basis, culminating in formal operations. Although Piaget's interpretations capture a rich variety of performance during childhood they fail to represent adequately the thought and emotions of mature and creative persons. For interpretations of adulthood and aging, a return to the dialectic basis is necessary. Such a reorganization can proceed from any of the four major levels of development. It introduces intra- and interindividual variations into Piaget's theory. Individuals may operate either simultaneously or in short succession at different cognitive levels. The ceaseless striving toward formal operations becomes inappropriate and ineffective for the level of dialectic maturity. (Author/DP)

Eighteen young (almost 16 years of age) and 18 old(average age 70) subjects were assigned to either the control or one of two experimental groups on the basis of their age, sex, vocabulary, and need for achievement scores. All participated in a test session and two experimental sessions. Results indicate that: (1) Items that have been often experienced and are repeatedly represented in the storage system of a subject are recognized faster than items that have been experienced less often. (2) For subjects with large accumulated repertoires (old subjects), the effects of experience with new items of varying frequencies will be relatively less marked than for subjects with smaller repertoires (young subjects). Keeping all other factors constant, their recognition thresholds for such new items are higher than for young subjects. (3) There seem to be age differences in long term need states as measured by the need for achievement test. Old subjects seem to rearrange items at a lower speed than young subjects and consequently have lower achievement test scores. (4) Need-arousing instructions hinder the performance of old subjects, but improve the performance of young ones. Because of their large storage, old subjects seem to become confused rather than being supported by this influence. The authors also discuss the need for further research and the implications of such research. (DO)

The purpose of this study was to develop equivalent forms of restricted association tests for different languages and to test their applicability. Twenty-four (12 male, 12 female) native speakers of each of the following languages were tested: English, German, French, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese. Most were graduate students at the University of Michigan or Michigan State University. The same seven types of restricted associations to the same 35 stimulus nouns were obtained in all languages. Written tests were administered individually with self-explanatory instructions in the language of the test. There was no time limit. The seven restricted association tasks were to give (1) class names for stimulus words, (2) another member of the class to which the stimulus belonged, (3) synonyms, (4) antonyms, (5) verbs denoting usage of the stimulus, (6) adjectives denoting qualities, and (7) parts or attributes of the stimulus. The results indicate that restricted association tests can be successfully adopted for use in foreign languages and that the results will indicate marked response variability between individuals as well as between languages. Since the numbers of subjects within the groups were rather small and since most subjects were recruited on a university campus, the study must be regarded as preliminary. (DO)

The associative behavior of 24 male chronic schizophrenics and 24 normal control subjects (male) equated for age and educational level was investigated. Free and restricted associations were obtained to analyze the organizational aspects of associative behavior as well as the number of unique or common responses per task, response repetitions under different task instructions, and agreement in responses among both groups of subjects. The associations of schizophrenics were more variable than those of normal subjects especially on tasks which restricted most the choice of responses. Agreement in responding between normal and schizophrenic subjects was markedly lower when compared with that between high and low creative subjects or with one-year test-retest data of a heterogeneous group. Repetition of responses given to the same stimuli under different instructions was markedly higher for schizophrenics, and thus, the degree of task/response differentiation was reduced. The restricted associations overlapped with free associations more markedly for schizophrenics, but the general structure of a conceptual semantic space was about the same for both groups. The authors feel that when explicit constraint in tasks of verbal associations in high, schizophrenics (more than normals) impose a low degree of implicit constraint upon their verbal behavior; when the external constraint is low, they increase implicit constraing. (Author/DO)

Twenty-four children each at the age levels of 6, 9, 12, and 15 years were tested on four types of experimentally determined conceptual clues in a study of concept identification and, therefore, language comprehension. Superordinates, similars, parts, and locations were selected as clue words, and the four clues were combined into all possible pairs. The task was to retrieve 16 stimuli which were originally used in a restricted association study. The number of correct answers was found to increase as a function of age, clue types, and the number of clues given. Similars proved to be the most useful single clues. The results indicate that while different explanatory techniques for words are not necessary for different age levels, the type of relationship and the number of clues given are important determinants for concept identification. (MS)

This document includes 10 articles dealing with five specific areas of language development. Two articles and a commentary cover each area. Resumes of the articles have been assigned the following numbers: memory functions (PS 001 487 and PS 001 488), associations and verbal habits (PS 001 489 and PS 001 490), language perception and discrimination (PS 001 491 and PS 001 492), verbal structures (PS 001 493 and PS 001 494), and verbal control PS 001 495 and PS 001 496). (WD)

Eight sentences with high associative connections between their major elements (hi-m sentences) were generated from the Michigan Restricted Association Norms (Riegel, 1965a, b). Eight additional sentences with no or low association connections (lo-m sentences) were derived from the hi-m sentences by a scrambling procedure. All sentences were of the form subject-verb-object or subject-verb-location, and were presented to eight male and eight female undergraduates in a learning task. Hi-m sentences were recalled significantly more often than lo-m sentences. The interaction, but not the differences, between the first and second trials were significant. There was an increase in the recall scores from trial to trial for the hi-m sentences but a decrease for the lo-m sentences. Generally, the results confirmed that it is possible to construct sentences with predictable recall scores on the basis of restricted and free association norms. This paper comprises a report in "Development of Language Functions, A Research Program-Project (Study B: Developmental Studies in Semantics)." (Author/DO)

The distinction between synchronic and diachronic linguistics is criticized on the ground that both approaches eliminate the individual from consideration and are insensitive to changes in the individual and society. (Author/RM)

The dialectical theory espoused in this article emphasizes contradictions and their synchronizations in short and long term development both in the individual and in society. (Author/AM)

Suggests that a dialectical theory of development deemphasizes equilibrium or balance at which development is at rest and emphasizes continuing changes brought about by inner and outer contradictions. (JMB)

Discusses the practice of maintaining separation between the experimenter and the subjects during scientific experiments and suggests that the dialectical interdependence between them is the very basis upon which psychological inquiries should rest. Some practical and theoretical remedies are explored. (JMB)

This speech, presented at the 29th Annual Gerontological Society, New York, October 16, 1976, compares three conceptualizations of men, society, and development, mechanistic, mentalistic, and dialectical. The implications for gerontology are discussed and summarized in reference to three concepts of time: absolute, relational, and dialectical. (Author)