Role of naming in delayed matching-to-sample.

A delayed matching-to-sample task, with pictures as sample and comparison stimuli, was given to four severely retarded youths. Although they matched accurately when the sample picture was available for comparison, they performed poorly on the delayed-matching in which the sample was removed a few seconds before the comparison stimuli appeared. When dictated names rather than pictures were presented as samples, three of the four subjects could match pictures to the names even under delay conditions which caused complete breakdown of picture-picture matching. Further tests indicated that these three subjects could name the pictures. Apparently, these three subjects were not applying existing skills (naming and remembering names during a delay) to the performances of the visual delayed-matching task. The second experiment confirmed that when the subjects were instructed to name the pictures during the matching task, they could do delayed picture-picture matching accurately. These findings suggested that some retarded persons, like some young children, may fail to bring existing language skills to the performance of a new task; instructions may bring out such skills, but the effect of the instructions may be transitory.