Conceptual discovery and control on a pictorial part-whole task as a function of age, intelligence and language

In order to observe nonverbal conceptual behavior in relation to age, intelligence, and language, normative data for hearing children and deaf children, aged 6-10 and 14, were collected. The major requirement of the task was a consistent control of choice behavior by the discovered principle of part-whole. In spite of moderate correlations between IQ and performance, improvement with age was only gradual. Just as lack of verbal experience did not handicap deaf Ss, the kind of verbalization after the task was found to be uncorrelated with performance. On the basis of these findings a construct of conceptional control was postulated as being related to IQ but only minimally associated with age or language.