CHILDREN'S MANIPULATION OF ILLUSORY AND AMBIGUOUS STIMULI, DISCRIMINATIVE PERFORMANCE, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

Superimposition and juxtaposition of stimuli to facilitate discriminative performance was studied using 160 children from 4-5 to 6-5 years of age. Four discrimination tasks were designed in which illusory arrangements of stimuli prevented consistently correct discriminative performance unless investigatory responses were performed. Six year olds spontaneously produced significantly more investigatory responses and correct discriminations than younger children; however, if trained to perform investigatory responses on the initial discrimination task, significant transfer occurred at all ages. Spontaneous performance of investigatory responses was found to be associated with ability to distinguish real and phenomenal properties of stimuli, but not to conservation of length. Proposals concerning the conceptual and performance factors that are likely to affect production of investigatory responses are discussed. A number of recent studies examining the nature and role of intervening mediational activities in conceptual problem solving and discrimination