Lsri Speaker Series - Audio

Kendler and Kendler (1962) are remembered for their bold challenge to the behaviorist tenet, widely accepted in the middle of the 20th century, that the learning process functions in an identical manner across species and across the human life cycle. To the contrary, they argued, learning develops. Young children learn via associationist mechanisms, but by age 7, the learning process has been transformed into one involving internal mediating concepts that connect overt stimuli and responses. Today it is apparent that the Kendlers overstated their case in claiming that young children do not form concepts. There is ample evidence to the contrary, and a different explanation for age differences on Kendlers' learning tasks is required. Following the Kendlers' work, the question of developmental changes in the learning process was largely put aside, as interest in children's learning declined in general. It is now, however, a somewhat different question than it was in the Kendlers' day. Rather than formation of S