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T HIS paper represents an attempt to discuss some aspects of the interrelationships between social structure, forms of speech, and the subsequent regulation of behavior. The practical context of the enquiry is the differential response to educational opportunity made by children from different social classes (Reissman 1963; Passow 1963). It has become abundantly clear that the determinants of this response are complex and that the response encapsulates the effects of socialization. The problem requires specification of the sociological processes which control the way the developing child relates himself to his environment. It requires an understanding of how certain areas of experience are differentiated, made specific and stabilized, so that which is relevant to the functioning of the social structure becomes relevant for the child. What seems to be needed is the development of a theory of social learning which would indicate what in the environment is available for learning, the conditions of learning, the constraints on subsequent learning, and the major reinforcing process. The behavioral implications of the physical and social environment are transmitted in some way to the child. What is the major channel for such transmissions? What are the principles which regulate such transmissions? What are the psychological consequences and how are these stabilized in the developing child? What factors are responsible for variations in the principles which regulate the transmissions? The socio-linguistic approach used here is a limited attempt to provide some kind of answer to these questions. The general framework of the argument will be given first. This will be followed by a detailed analysis of two general linguistic codes. Towards the end of the paper, some variants of the codes will be very crudely associated with social class.

This paper is a review of efforts to extend the use of information techniques to tasks which are intellectual in nature. Complex tasks such as problem solving and concept formation are viewed in terms of simpler processes of information transformations and immediate memory. The first section of the paper considers efforts to describe the difficulty of transformations such as occur in arithmetic operations and concept utilization in terms of their informational parameters. The second part considers the relationship of these transformations to tasks which require retention. The final section extends the analysis to the complex sequential tasks of induction, problem solving and reading. The paper as a whole may be considered as a quantitative extension of the view of thinking as skilled performance (Bartlett, 1958).

PP-T0001-0-I This paper describes the inauguration of a Computer Software section in PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY. It explains the three kinds of communications that will be published: Program Registrations, Software Abstracts, and Software Articles, either theoretical or describing working programs. Detailed instructions regarding content and format are given. In anticipation of a computerized software retrieval system for psychophysiology, it also contains coding instructions for authors so they may identify their papers by subject, organ system, machine, and language prior to submission.

One of the more interesting outgrowths of Piaget's work is the endeavor to construct a scale of mental development based on Piaget's “stages” reported here by Pinard and Laurendeau. This paper was prepared especially for this issue as a complement to the Piaget Conference papers.

PERHAPS one of the most complex tasks in human learning is the problem of how to achieve fluency in a foreign language. To illustrate the extraordinary stress and intricacy of this task, an instructor in one of the more esoteric languages at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, remarked that *..n. after 12 months of intensive language training for 8 to 10 hours a day in small classes of six students, only one in twenty graduates was what one may describe as 'fluent'." What will be reported next may suggest a partial solution to this ancient learning problem. This paper will describe a learning approach called the strategy of the total physical response. The theory behind this learning strategy was described in an earlier paper.' Essentially, the notion developed in that theoretical article was that solutions for intricate human

This paper has attempted to outline the basis for a new theory of learning. One important feature of the theory has to do with those respects in which it is not new–it has incorporated some ideas contained in presently competing theories into a formulation that offers the possibility of unifying these rivals. In addition, new suggestions concerning the analysis of performance, the interpretation of punishment and the role of information feedback in learning have been offered. Data from three experiments described in the paper have both supported predictions based on the new theory and have indicated difficulties in previous interpretations of learning. These three experiments also demonstrated that the new theory has the desirable feature of lending itself readily to experimentation on human subjects.

This paper presents a formal theory of actions which may serve as a foundation for different domains, such as theory of organization, theory of planning, etc. The basic idea underlying the construction is that actions may be concatenated into strings, by performing them one after another, and that not all strings of actions so obtained are physically feasible. This allows us to draw an analogy between the class of admissible strings and a language: actions play the role of words in a certain vocabulary, and the admissible strings of actions play the role of sentences. One may therefore speak of a language of actions, characteristic for a given situation, and analyse it by means of mathematical linguistics. Moreover, a string of actions leads to certain outcomes. If one considers only those outcomes which are inherently connected with this string, i.e., occur whenever this string is performed, one may enrich the language of actions with a semantic structure: the well determined outcomes of a given string of actions play very much the same role as meanings of sentences. The above linguistic intuitions apply to the case of linear concatenations, where simultaneous actions are excluded; thus, the main, but not the only one, interpretation is in terms of actions of a single person. One may, however, consider also simultaneous strings of actions, for which the interpretation is in terms of team actions. In this case, some methods of mathematical linguistics are still applicable, leading to formal explication of such concepts as cooperation, blocking, etc.

This paper describes the form of human behavior as a program of behavioral units and progression evolved and transmitted in culture. The program for transaction prescribes both individual parts and the relationships in a traditional interaction. In actual enactment of such a transaction kinesic and other communicative signals are employed, largely out of awareness, to pace and integrate the various behaviors of the whole.

The Genesis of Language—a Psycholinguistic Approach. Edited by Frank Smith and George A. Miller Psycholinguistic Papers. Edited by J. Lyons and R. J. Wales

Following Piaget's opening remarks at Cornell University this paper was delivered for the purpose of summarizing American cognitive studies. The emphasis is on two current approaches to the study of cognitive growth in children—a modified stimulus-response approach and the approach serving as the basis for the research effort in the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard University under the direction of Jerome Bruner. Similarities and differences in these two approaches and experimentation representative of each approach are presented.

Approaches to the study of cognitive development and its assessment at the University of Minnesota are presented in this paper by Charlesworth. Using Piaget's theory of cognitive development as a base, some intriguing experimentation with the “surprise response” as an indicator of cognitive developmental level are reported. Charlesworth also speculates about teachers' use of this approach to facilitate cognitive development.

Summary The construction of various types of machines which can be automatically self-reproducing, in a sense derived from von Neumann, has been outlined. The features, which any such machine must possess, have been discussed and their possible significance in the understanding of DNA replication has been indicated. I am much indebted to Dr C. A. B. Smith for his valuable suggestions in the interest of making this paper comprehensible, and to Mr A. J. Lee for his admirable drawings.

Contemporary psychologists are beginning to do more than identify those traits characteristic of creative adolescents, for while a trait approach to creativity is indeed informative, it fails to suggest precisely how creativity may be enhanced. In the following paper, Davis suggests that creativity profitably may be conceptualized as consisting mainly of three trainable components, (1) appropriate creative attitudes, the most critical of which is a favorable attitude toward highly imaginative problem solutions, (2) various cognitive abilities which facilitate whatever mental abstracting, combining, perceiving, associating, filling in gaps, etc., contribute to the fluent production of original ideas, and (3) techniques for the conscious and systematic production of new combinations of ideas. Further, by incorporating many concepts and principles from this three-part model, Davis describes a novel program for developing creativity in adolescents.

Recent experimental and theoretical work in experimental psychology provides a framework for understanding some of the special problems which exist in the development of language. The purpose of the present paper is to extend a number of the established behavioral principles to the area of language development and to emphasize some of the special problems involved in the acquisition of reading skills. The principles to be developed are those of operant conditioning or operant learning and the primary sources are Keller and Schoenfeld (7) and Skinner (12). In this respect, the present approach is like that of Gewirtz (3), who discussed emotional dependence in this JOURNAL. The language activities of children are considered herein to be behaviors which are subject to these principles of acquisition. A full presentation of language development must include the principles of classical conditioning and the interaction of classical and operant principles in the development of word meaning (13, 14, 15, 17). However, these principles will not be dealt with at this time.

This paper combines biological, biochemical and psychological data toward the construction of a bio-psychological theory of behavior. The fundamental assumptions are that the environment favored the evolution of organisms possessing receptors sensitive to periodic or repetitive stimuli. Moreover the presence of periodic stimuli in space and time have induced, through natural selection, the appearance of highly advanced forms of living organisms capable of exploiting the environment by utilizing information in periodic stimuli. Indeed, this dependency on periodic stimulation, such as light energy and movement of surrounding matter, has induced a psychological, perceptual bias to readily assimilate repetitive stimuli thereby producing changes in behavior. This perceptual bias favored by organic evolution and reinforced by stimulation of the organism during development produces communication patterns in higher animals characterized by repetitive sounds. The relationship of this theory to current learning models is discussed and applications are made to human learning.

SJOBERG, L. The new functionalism. Scand. J. Psychol., 1971, 12, 29–52. – The paper reviews the development of Brunswik's probabilistic functionalism. Brunswik's major contribution is held to be his consistent emphasis of the importance of the ecology. Brief reviews are then given of the many recent applications of probabilistic functionalism in perception, learning, and applied psychology. Finally, a mentalistic approach to psychology is considered as an alternative to functionalism.

Edgar A. Poe, The Rationale of Verse: A Preliminary Edition, Incorporating Cognate Documents by Goold Brown, William Cullen Bryant, James Davenport Whelpley. Introduction, notes, and index by J. Arthur Greenwood. Princeton, N.J.: Wolfhart Book Company, 1968. xxxii + 270 pp. $3.50 paper. $7.00 cloth.