Rotary Pursuit Performance as a Function of Mental Age

Abstract

Renewed interest in the developmental aspects of learning and related phenomena has been indicated by many recent publications. Representative studies have been summarized by Inhelder ( 5 ) , Mednick and Lehtinen (7), and Arnmons, Alprin, and Arnmons (1) . In addition to a summary of the literature, the last article reports an experiment which is especially relevant to the present one. Normal pre-adult Ss from school grades 3, 6, 9, 11, and 12, tested on the pursuit rotor, showed increasing proficiency for higher grade levels. The only exception was a decrease in performance for female students for grades 9 through 12. These investigators concluded that there is a continuous relationship between age and proficiency on this task. Barnett and Cantor (2 ) found no relationship between mental age (MA) or chronological age (CA) and pursuit rotor performance within a sample of mental defectives. However, their study was undertaken for a different purpose and the analysis was not particularly relevant to this problem. Studies (3, 4 ) conducted in this laboratory on the relationship between MA and different types of learning would suggest a positive prediction. The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that rotary pursuit performance is related to MA in mental retardates. METHOD Subjects.-Ss were 88 male and female residents randomly selected from the population of an institution for the mentally retarded. Ss with gross neuropathology or motor and sensory disabilities were excluded. Ss were divided into three MA groups. Table 1 presents further data on these Ss.