Research was conducted on two selective attention systems in learning situations. The theoretical and experimental approaches are presented in a set of six papers. One paper considered directions in attention theory and five papers report experiments with pigeon and children subjects. The two attention systems are (1) coding response, which…

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)…

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…

Investigators in this study looked for conditions that can rapidly establish continuous stimulus control of continuous response variations, or "response mapping." Unlike previous research in stimulus control, where a single stimulus comes to control a single response, 36 5-year-old children received errorless discrimination training at…

This paper develops a stimulus selection theory, based on an extensive review of previous research, which gives weight to context change or stimulus generalization decrement. The theory assumes no special compounding or configurational process, and accounts for the learning of successive discriminations without the addition of any special process.…

The author initially cites the associationistic position of Spiker and the perceptual learning position of E. Gibson and concludes that the existing data does not clearly support either hypothesis. He describes a new approach designed to test these explanations of the role of verbal pretraining on subsequent discrimination learning. It consists of…

The interrelations between mental age (MA), IQ, and mediation were studied in 72 retardates in special classes. Subjects were selected to fall into sexually balanced groups of six in 12 MA-IQ categories (IQ 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, and 80-89; MA 4-0 to 5-11, 6-0 to 7-11, and 8-0 to 9-11). The apparatus alternately displayed two pairs of stimuli, and…

The bibliography on learning in mentally handicapped persons is divided into the following topic categories: applied behavior change, classical conditioning, discrimination, generalization, motor learning, reinforcement, verbal learning, and miscellaneous. An author index is included. (KW)

Additional support to a stimulus-response (S-R) association by the use of an extraneous stimulus is called "prompting." Prompting has an effect on learner achievement particularly if the prompting agent is identical on successive S-R trials. This experiment sought to analyze the differences in learner achievement when different prompting stimuli…

A correspondence is suggested between the two different abilities underlying performance on intellectual or learning tasks discussed by Jensen and the two response processes postulated by various mediational models of discrimination learning. To test this, two groups of nursery school children differentiated by the measurable social class of their…

One hundred twenty-eight preschool boys were subjects in a 4x2x2 factorial design to investigate the change in reinforcer efficacy as a function of prior stimulus exposure. The factors were: (1) amount of repetition, 5, 25, 45, or 65; (2) reinforcer, good or bell; and (3) satiator, good or bell. Two additional groups were run as control groups to…