Relationships between visual figure discrimination, verbal abilities, and gender

Recall Accuracy in Children: Age vs. Conceptual Thinking

The aim of this study was to replicate a previous experiment using a different stimulus event. The present study examined the relationship between age, development of conceptual thinking, and responses to free recall, suggestive and specific option-posing questions in children and adults. Sixty-three children (aged 7–14) and 30 adults took part in an experiment in which they first participated in a live staged event, then, a week later, were interviewed about the event and tested using the Word Meaning Structure Test. Age and level of conceptual thinking were positively correlated in children. Compared to age, conceptual thinking ability better predicted children's accurate free recall and inaccurate responses to specific option-posing questions, but not inaccurate responses to suggestive questions.

Studies in the Mentality of Literates: Searching for the Cultural Great Divide at the Individual Level of Analysis

Today it is usually agreed that cultures are different but no culture is more developed than some other. It follows that culture did not develop hierarchically. Otherwise some cultures must be more developed than the others. This position, however, contradicts ample evidence that individual mental development is hierarchical. As culture can develop only on the basis of individual development, cultural development has to be hierarchical too. In this paper a research program to study cultural and individual development in one framework is outlined. Particularly it is discussed whether it is possible to define a Great Divide, a characteristic that would distinguish more developed cultures from less developed cultures today. Both literacy and formal education are rejected as candidates for a Great Divide. Then, following and extending Vygotsky's theory, it is demonstrated that a Great Divide can be defined in terms of the development of word meaning structure (WMS). A novel theory of the development of WMS over five hierarchical stages is shortly described and it is suggested that both individuals and cultures develop over the same stages in invariant order. Particularly differences between everyday and logical (or "scientific" in Vygotsky's terms) concepts are discussed. It is theoretically explained how study of adult individuals can be used to support the presented theory of developmental similarities between cultures and individuals. Specific hypotheses for the study are put forward.