Failure to learn and generalize abstract relational rules has critical implications for education. In this study, we aimed to determine which training conditions facilitate relational transfer in a relatively simple (patterning) discrimination versus a relatively complex (biconditional) discrimination. The amount of training participants received…

Two experiments tested whether a peak-shifted generalization gradient could be explained by the averaging of distinct gradients displayed in subgroups reporting different generalization rules. Across experiments using a causal judgment task (Experiment 1) and a fear conditioning paradigm (Experiment 2), we found a close concordance between…

The goal of the present study is to understand the role orthographic and semantic information play in the behavior of skilled readers. Reading latencies from a self-paced sentence reading experiment in which Russian near-synonymous verbs were manipulated appear well-predicted by a combination of bottom-up sublexical letter triplets (trigraphs) and…

Context renewal is identified when the conditioned response (CR) elicited by an extinguished conditioned stimulus (CS) reappears as a result of changing the contextual cues during the test. Two experiments were designed for testing contextual renewal in a conditioned taste aversion preparation. Experiment 1 assessed ABA and AAB context renewal,…

Findings of a series of studies involving kindergarteners indicated that the delay technique was highly effective when the prompt had the same configuration as the correct stimulus and the prompt's position prevented control by irrelevant location cues. The effectiveness of delayed orientation prompting was not always matched by its efficiency.…

The purpose of this study was to identify the nature of the information which preschool-age children must attend to and maintain within problems in order to solve a series of two-choice simultaneous discrimination problems. Twenty-four preschool children participated in the experiment. The stimuli used in these problems consisted of planometric…

Three autistic boys (ages 9-13) were trained to select a card containing a stimulus array comprised of three visual cues. Decreased distance between cues resulted in responses to more cues, increased distance to fewer cues. Distances did not affect the responding of children matched for mental and chronological age. (Author/JW)