Two normal and two mentally retarded children were trained to earn pennies by pressing a key according to a multiple variable-interval extinction schedule of reinforcement. Retarded children differed from normal children by producing more positive than negative discriminative stimuli. (Author/DB)

Seeks to clarify the relative influence of social and biological motivation on discrimination learning in schizophrenic subjects to determine if schizophrenic attention deficit is subject to aversive social control. (Author/RK)

Forty-four third graders were given a two-choice conceptual discrimination learning task. The two major factors were (1) four treatment groups varying at the extremes on two personality measures, approval motivation and locus of control and (2) sex. (MS)

Investigates third- and fourth-grade children's verbal evaluations of syllables paired with different reward schedules (full, partial, or none) for "pleasantness" and "curiosity." (Author/ED)

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…

A major concern of this report was to compare the effect of three verbal reinforcement combinations (VRCs) on the rate at which children learn a simultaneous two-choice discrimination problem. The experiments were designed to test the following: (1) whether relative effectiveness of the VRCs was dependent upon task complexity or subject age; (2)…

As a result of findings of a previous study, this study, which sought to program preschool subjects to wait one minute for reinforcement, used pause-building procedures before delay conditions were started. The children, 3- to 5-year-olds, were designated either Baseline (control) subjects (n=3) or Programmed (experimental) subjects (n=5). Though…

Four male and five female Negro children (ranging in age from 5 to 9 years) served in an experimental comparison of the discriminative control exerted by sex and race aspects of other children. A baseline was established in which color photoslides of a Negro girl and a Caucasian boy differentially controlled responding on two push buttons.…

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…

Three studies, using handicapped children, investigated: effects of three different reinforcement contingencies (positive reinforcement, removal of positive reinforcement, and combination of positive reinforcement and removal of positive reinforcement) on a steady-state discrimination task; effect of a conditioned emotional response procedure on a…

The stimulus summation hypothesis predicts that the response strength of individual stimuli, when placed in combination, algebraically summate to produce a greater response strength than that of individual stimuli. (Author)