This experiment evaluated the contributions of frequency and contingency of reinforcement to the deprivation-satiation phenomenon. The findings indicated that the perceived contingency of reinforcement is a more powerful determinant of its subsequent reinforcement effectiveness than is its frequency. (JMB)

A brief report of this research was presented at the 1967 biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development. (MH)

Article based on a doctoral dissertation submitted to Syracuse University. Reprints from D.L. Streiner, Department of Psychiatry, Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital, P.O. Box 585, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

The study attempted to minimize nonspecific response strategies which supposedly mask the positive effect of perceptual pretraining on initial discrimination learning within the predifferentiation paradigm. The subjects were 44 first- and second-graders. Experimental-group subjects received rules learning (RL), pretraining, initial discrimination…

Investigates the effect of delay of reinforcement upon human discrimination learning with particular emphasis on the form of the gradient within the first few seconds of delay. In previous studies subjects are usually required to make an instrumental response to a stimulus, this is followed by the delay interval, and finally, the reinforcement…

In this study, 48 third-grade children learned a successive, two-choice discrimination under one of three conditions: (1) immediate reinforcement (IM), (2) 10-second empty delay (ED), and (3) 10-second delay with the discriminative stimuli in view of S (FD). The performances of groups IM and FD were only marginally different, and were both…

Discrimination - learning behavior of children is analyzed in terms of two theoretical orientaitons: the mediational - attention conception, and a coordinated single-unit and mediational S-R formulation. The influence of verbal labels and other symbolic representational responses is discussed. (NH)

Parents and counselors must learn communication techniques which encourage expression of feelings and at the same time indicate adult approval or disapproval of the child's expressed behavior. Children must be helped to discriminate between a disapproving act and the doer". (CJ)

A series of investigations which simultaneously manipulated parameters of reinforcement and age and sex of children were conducted in order to further describe the learning process in children. In addition, an attempt was made to relate perceived parental discipline to performance in the discrimination learning tasks employed in this research. The…