Feature positive discriminations in adults and children

Abstract

The present experiment examined whether children and adult students differ in cognitive strategy used to solve a serial feature positive discrimination. The participants learned to make a specific response (R) to a target stimulus (T) when it was preceded by a feature stimulus (F) and to refrain from responding to T when presented alone. This discrimination can be solved in two distinctively different ways: by forming a direct relation between F and R (simple associational strategy), or by F indicating the T–R relation (higher-order relational strategy). The strategy used was examined by means of a transfer test and a counterconditioning manipulation. The results suggest that, for both the children and students, responding during the transfer test was under the control of the simple associational strategy. However, retest responding was controlled by a higher-order relational strategy more in the students than in the children. These results were discussed in the framework of previous findings in the developmental literature on age differences in type of cognitive strategy.