A Note on Stimulus Control Shaping and One-Trial Learning in Two- and Three-Year-Old Children

Abstract

Fifty-nine children were exposed to one of three discrimination training procedures that might teach them to discriminate a circle from an ellipse. One procedure was an extensively studied, well-validated stimulus control shaping program that used intensity fading procedures. The other two procedures used no fading and relied primarily on simple differential reinforcement of the final performance. The stimulus control shaping program established the circle-ellipse discrimination in 18 of 19 subjects with few or no errors, thus replicating previous research. An unexpected finding was the high success rate of the other two procedures. The circle-ellipse discrimination was established in 36 of 40 subjects. Many of these subjects also learned with few or no errors. In general, the findings demonstrate that extremely rapid (even one-trial) discrimination learning is achievable with very young children without stimulus control shaping. The findings also point to variables that may be important in analysis of learning that occurs in the course of the circle-ellipse stimulus control shaping program.