Two experiments examined conditional discrimination in 4- to 6-year-olds. Children learned to choose one of two objects (e.g., circle) when the background was, say, red and to choose the other object (e.g., triangle) when the background was, say, blue. Awareness was assessed and interpreted as a marker of relational processing. In Experiment 1,…

Behavioral, psychophysiological, and neuropsychological studies have revealed large developmental differences in various learning paradigms where learning from positive and negative feedback is essential. The differences are possibly due to the use of distinct strategies that may be related to spatial working memory and attentional control. In…

Investigated the effect of correction and noncorrection procedures on the occurrence of the overlearning reversal effect (ORE) in 80 children 4-6 years of age. Results showing the existence of ORE at the preschool level are explained in terms of a response-switching strategy. (GO)

Twenty 3- to 5-year-olds were required to discriminate between a simultaneously-presented pair of displays having common elements but differentiated by the presence of a distinctive feature in one of the displays. The effect of explicit verbal feedback for incorrect choices on the learning of discriminations was examined. (JH)

Subjects in three age groups judged absolute and relative frequencies of pictures and words presented in lists. There was relatively greater improvement with age in judgment of pictorial stimuli. Study results lend support to the frequency theory of discrimination learning. (DP)

Four- and five-year-old children (n=24) were put into two groups and trained to discriminate between two displays which could only be differentiated by a single distinctive feature located on one of the displays. Subjects trained with the distinctive feature located on the positive display learned the simultaneous discrimination while feature…

In experiment one, the experimenter delivered frequent or infrequent social reinforcement that was either contingent or noncontingent. In experiment two, seating arrangements were varied so that information concerning the direction of reinforcement was made ambiguous. (RH)

Competing explanations of the beneficial effect of spacing in retardate discrimination learning were tested. Results are inconsistent with consolidation and rehearsal theories but support the prediction of the Geber, Greenfield, and House spacing model that forgetting from short-term memory facilities retardate learning. (Author/SB)

Reports three experiments conducted to investigate factors controlling performance of nonreinforced verbal imitation. (WY)

A study of the ability of young children to discriminate among such letters as p and q, d and b, using four different methods of discrimination (matching, copying, naming, and writing to dictation). Results show that the accuracy of discrimination is dependent upon the method of assessment employed. (Author/WY)

Three groups of severely retarded and three groups of mildly retarded individuals responded to a series of five 10-trial oddity problems under nonreward conditions. Results suggest that oddity is a stimulus characteristic to which an approach response is made, independent of its concurrent association with reward, and that stimulus value of oddity…

Results indicated that, for all but one of eight autistic children, visual discriminations were acquired significantly faster, with fewer errors, when the S+ stimulus was faded first. These findings are related to the literature on the effects of stimulus novelty on selection and learning. (Author/RH)