AGE AND PERCEPTUAL‐MOTOR TRANSFER IN IMBECILES

During the last decade, interest in the psychology of imbeciles has been revived. A number of studies have shown that the limits to their learning, though considerable, are by no means so profound as had been estimated, and certain practical and theoretical principles have been formulated; some of these have a bearing on general theories of learning. The present experiment tests a hypothesis, derived from Hebb's theories, that perceptual‐motor transfer would be inversely correlated with age. Using three small matched groups of typical medium‐grade imbeciles averaging 9, 17 and 23 years of age, respectively, the hypothesis was strongly confirmed on four perceptual‐motor tasks, with the youngest group showing very considerable transfer. A second major finding was that from very inferior starting points the performance of the children at the conclusion nearly equalled the end‐levels of those subjects who were 8 and 14 years older, and there was no certainty that any group had reached its limits. Transfer of training probably involved both ‘set’ and a sharpened perceptual discrimination. Implications are discussed. 1961 The British Psychological Society