Cue novelty and training level in the discrimination shift performance of retardates

Abstract

This study assessed the effects of cue novelty and training level on the attention of moderately retarded adults. Each S learned a problem, to one of three training levels, with his nonpreferred dimension relevant and his preferred dimension irrelevant. A subsequent shift problem, employing either familiar or novel cues on S's preferred dimension, allowed two alternative solutions, (a) a reversal based on S's nonpreferred dimension or, (b) an extra-dimensional shift based on S's preferred dimension. Ss used more extra-dimensional shift solutions in the presence of novel cues than in the presence of familiar cues. This effect was absent at the highest training level.