Outerdirectedness in retarded children as a function of sex of experimenter and sex of subject.

Effects of same- and cross-sex experimenters on attentive behavior and learning of 64 EMR children were examined in two conditions: experimenter not present (not in) or experimenter present and providing cues relevant to task mastery (relevant cue). A significant Sex of Experimenter X Sex of Subject interaction was found in the learning data, with girls performing significantly better than boys when the experimenter was male, the reverse pattern was evident, although not statistically significant, when the experimenter was female. Some effects were also found for individual experimenters. Although significantly more nontask orienting responses were observed in the relevant-cue condition, subjects in this condition performed as well on the learning task as did subjects in the not-in condition. Reversal trials showed greater glancing and superior performance in the relevant-cue condition.