The differential outcomes effect is a phenomenon where use of a choice-unique outcome for each type of correct choice in a conditional discrimination task increases rate of learning and overall accuracy, as compared to the traditional use of a single, common outcome for all types of correct choices. This phenomenon was successfully demonstrated…

Several 3- to 5-year-old children participated in this study designed to discover the necessary procedures to establish nonresponding in preschool children during delay of reinforcement. The children were divided into two groups: (1) the programed group (PG), to which a 60-second delay period was introduced gradually and (2) the baseline group…

Two 4-year-old children were shown the use of an apparatus whereby they could obtain toys and candy by making certain responses. The apparatus was a matching-to-sample device on which were arranged five response buttons in a circle and one in the middle. Each response button had a display window for the stimulus. Four of the five windows on the…

Preschoolers learned colors more rapidly than sizes and forms when cup stimuli were used. They learned sizes and forms more rapidly than colors when face stimuli were used. (RL)

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…

Study supported by grants from the University of Connecticut Research Foundation and from the U.S. Office of Education.