Problem-Solving Processes in Probability Learning Tasks in Children with Mental Retardation : The Developmental-Difference Controversy

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  • 確率学習場面における精神遅滞児の問題解決過程と発達-差異論争
  • カクリツ ガクシュウ バメン ニ オケル セイシン チタイジ ノ モンダイ カ

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The present review of problem-solving behavior in children with mental retardation has two goals. The primary purpose of the review is to clarify how cognitive and motivational factors function respectively or reciprocally as determinants of performance on probability learning tasks. The second purpose is to attempt a methodological reexamination of probability learning, in order to resolve the developmental-difference controversy. Weir (1964) proposed a developmental hypothesis based on behaviorism, in which problem-solving processes changed from single units to mediational responses with increasing age. From another viewpoint, Tanaka (1979) analyzed and described the logical structure of this task as characterized by two continued levels of learning. The first level of learning is hypothesis testing; this aims to discover a rule by which problems are solved at 100% success. The second level grasps at maximization as the most effective strategy. Tanaka (1980) also examined problem-solving processes in children with mental retardation from the viewpoint of a cognitive framework. From this analysis, he found that the higher the CA (MA) was in children without mental retardation, the more they attended to the cue sets and logically operated on these cue sets. Such a developmental tendency was not, however, found in children with mental retardation. In the time since Tanaka's analysis was published, although children with mental retardation were not used as subjects in many studies, it was shown that cognitive functioning (e.g., serial memory, abstract integration) was related to systematic alternation, maximization, or perseveration in probability learning (Kreitler et al., 1983), and also that with increasing age (i.e., from 5 to 12 years old), children developed conceptions of probability and consequently used more maximization and hypothesis testing (Kreitler et al., 1989). On the other hand, it has been reported that children with mental retardation showed maximization on a probability learning task because they were willing to settle for a relatively low amount of reinforcement. This was shown through experimental manipulations in which success and failure experiences were the experimental conditions; this also proved Zigler's model of the expectancy-success hypothesis. In addition to such analyses of motivational factors, Kreitler et al. (1984) have confirmed that level of curiosity affects children's probability learning. However, there is no research on how motivational variables affect any cognitive processes at the first level of learning on probability learning. In order to resolve the developmental-difference controversy, reciprocity should be investigated by using the method of formative expreriments in which some cognitive processes are extacted as experimental conditions.

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