Effects of presenting incidental information in consequent events on future learning

Abstract

The effects of presenting future target stimuli in the consequent event following correct responses to current target stimuli were examined in two experiments teaching eight students with moderate handicaps to name photographs. In Experiment I, progressive time delay was used to teach two sets of photographs. During instruction, correct responses to one set of stimuli resulted in praise and presentation of the printed word for the person in the photograph (future condition). In the second set, a correct response was followed by praise alone (non-future condition). After establishing criterion level performance on both sets of photographs, students were taught to read the printed word from each of the two sets. Experiment II was a systematic replication of Experiment I. Four students from a different classroom also were taught to name two sets of photographs. An adapted alternating treatments design was used in each experiment. The results indicated that (a) all students learned to name the photographs; (b) presentation of future target stimuli (words) in consequent events resulted in seven of the eight students learning to read some of the words; and (c) the total number of sessions, trials, errors, and percentage of errors