Small deviations from bilateral symmetry (fluctuating asymmetries) are cues to fitness differences in some animals. Therefore, researchers have considered whether animals use these small asymmetries as visual cues to determine appropriate behavioral responses (e.g., mate preferences). However, there have been few systematic studies of animals'…

Errorless learning refers to a variety of discrimination learning techniques that eliminate or minimize responding to incorrect choices. This article describes experimental roots of errorless learning and applied errorless strategies. Specifically, previous research on stimulus fading, stimulus shaping, response prevention, delayed prompting,…

Subjects used more extra-dimensional shift solutions in the presence of novel cues than in the presence of familiar cues, except at the highest training level. (MH)

Progressively delayed extra-stimulus prompts were used to help kindergarten children discriminate left-right mirror-image stimuli in four experiments. Results showed that most subjects rapidly learned to respond to the orientation prompts; delayed orientation prompting was always successful regardless of how the prompts were eliminated; and the…

The role of the spatial relationship between target responses and reinforcers in the discrimination learning of six mentally retarded adults was evaluated. Results showed that discrimination performance was more efficient in the experimental condition (reinforcement located near the correct cue) than the control condition (reinforcement in common…

Two experiments show that response to explicit dimensions is not crucial to the change from easier nonreversal to easier reversal shifts during overlearning in grammar school children ages 7, 8, and 9. (WY)

Verbal pretraining aided both single-problem discrimination and learning-set performance, while single-problem mastery manipulations had no significant effect. These results support the theory of acquired distinctiveness of cues. (MH)

Nonhuman animals, like humans, appear sensitive to the structure of the elements of sequences, perhaps even when the structure relates nonadjacent elements. In the present study, we examined the contribution of chunking, rule learning, and item memory when rats learned serial patterns composed of two interleaved subpatterns. In one group, the…

Presents four studies of concept identification behavior in first graders and kindergarten children under the blocking paradigm as implemented within a multidimensional discrimination task. While blocking was observed in children's learning, the data indicate the need for more sensitive and individualized measures of stimulus control in future…

Confirms that single-hue color cues facilitate initial learning without being disruptive at transfer. (RB)

Four hundred children ages 5, 9, and 12 were given a component selection task with stimuli differing in color and shape. Results indicate a greater tendency for older than younger children to withdraw attention from a normally dominant component when advantageous to adopt another feature as the primary functional cue. (Author/SB)

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.…

Results indicated that in both adults and infants combined cues facilitate discrimination of the phonemic contrast regardless of whether the cues cooperate or conflict. The three experiments did not support a phonetic interpretation of conflicting/cooperating cues for the perception of final stop consonant voicing. (Author/DB)

In both discrimination learning and partial reinforcement, transitions may occur from nonrewarded to rewarded trials (NR transition). In discrimination learning, NR transitions may occur in two different stimulus alternatives (NR different transitions). In partial reward, NR transitions may occur in a single stimulus alternative (NR same…