Groups of second grade and college students were presented with a series of three-alternative, four-dimensional discrimination problems that contained probes for the subject's hypothesis. Subjects received either complete feedback or partial feedback. In the latter condition, when subjects were told their response choice was incorrect the correct…

Two groups of kindergarten children received stimulus differentiation training either with feedback (experimental Ss) or without (controls), prior to presentation of a series of discrimination-learning problems using blank-trial probes. Findings are discussed in relation to theoretical perspectives derived from Piagetian theory and developmental…

Presents four studies of concept identification behavior in first graders and kindergarten children under the blocking paradigm as implemented within a multidimensional discrimination task. While blocking was observed in children's learning, the data indicate the need for more sensitive and individualized measures of stimulus control in future…

TO DETERMINE WHAT EFFECT INTRALIST SIMILARITY AND STIMULUS ISOLATION WOULD HAVE ON THE VON RESTORFF EFFECT, ISOLATED STIMULUS TERMS WERE PRESENTED IN RED AND NONISOLATED STIMULUS TERMS WERE PRESENTED IN BLACK. SUBJECTS WERE 60 FIRST GRADERS. THE PAIRED-ASSOCIATE ANTICIPATION PROCEDURE WAS USED. ACQUISITION TRIALS AND TRANSFER TESTS WERE GIVEN FOR…

Thurstone's landmark papers on psychophysics, published in the twenties, are discussed in this presidential address to the Psychometric Society. The development of psychophysics from Thurstone to the present is presented in some detail. (JKS)

If learning is viewed in terms of the tendency to approach a stimulus that has been rewarded and to avoid a stimulus that has not been rewarded, then it must be concluded that the subjects in this study did not learn. (Author)

In general, the study confirmed the prediction that learning of a discrimination under punishment or a reward-punishment condition is superior to that under reward alone. (Authors)

Research supported by research grant MH-03008 from NIMH, U.S. Public Health Service.

In the fall of 2003, the authors corresponded on the topic of private events on the listserv of the Verbal Behavior Special Interest Group. Extracts from that correspondence raised questions about the role of response amplitude in determining units of analysis, whether private events can be investigated directly, and whether covert behavior…

The current study consisted of 2 parts, with the same 4 normally developing 4-yr-old children employed across both parts. The primary aim of Part 1 was to replicate previous research on exemplar training and its impact upon the emergence of repertoires of derived symmetry or mutually entailed relations. In this part of the study, the children were…

Reviews research which demonstrates that responses from different behavior systems to a given stimulus situation may be far from perfectly correlated with each other. Discusses the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of these systems and the roles of both the species and the individual in bringing the systems into mutual correspondence.…