
verbal effects in the intermediate-size transportation problem
preschool children were given an intermediate-size discrimination problem,
told before each response that the reward was under the "medium" stimulus:
and 1- and 3-step transposition tests.  during training, group i was
group ii was told that it was "not under the big or little one"; and group
iii was not told anything.  the verbalizations were not given during the
tests.  groups i and ii learned the initial discrimination faster than group
iii, and transposed more than group iii, but there was a distance effect
in all three groups.  these results, and other data, suggest that the
deficiency in the verbal control over motor behavior in young children arises
from deficiencies in both the decoding and encoding processes.
