Discrimination In Children Research Articles

Pronunciation and the frequency-meaningfulness effect in children's frequency discrimination.

Pronunciation and the frequency-meaningfulness effect in children's frequency discrimination.

Pronunciation and the frequency-meaningfulness effect in children's frequency discrimination.

Pronunciation and the frequency-meaningfulness effect in children's frequency discrimination.

Effect of Spatial Separation of Stimuli on Children's Discrimination Learning

ETAUGH, CLAIRE F., and POPE, BARBARA K. Effect of Spatial Separation of Stimuli on Children's Discrimination Learning. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1974, 45, 1170-1172. 68 6and 8-year-old children were given a 2-choice simultaneous-form discrimination task in which the stimuli were separated either by 2% or 10 inches (from center to center). Greater separation of the stimuli was found to retard learning. The results are consistent with previous findings that young children, in a variety of situations, perform better when task components are spatially contiguous than when they are separated.

Effect of Spatial Separation of Stimuli on Children's Discrimination Learning

Effect of Spatial Separation of Stimuli on Children's Discrimination Learning

Socioeconomic Status Differences in Children's Discrimination Learning as Related to the Reward and Information Functions of Response-contingent Stimuli

ELEY, MALCOLM G. Socioeconomic Status Differences in Children's Discrimination Learning as Related to the Reward and Information Functions of Response-contingent Stimuli. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1974, 45, 834-838. A visual discrimination task was administered to 128 7-8year-olds. The 3-factorial design involved reinforcement (candy vs. light flash), instructions (complete vs. minimal prior definition of response-adequacy meaning of reinforcer), and SES (upper vs. lower). Analyses yielded tentative support for the prediction that with full prior instructions lower SES subjects would perform equally well under both material and signal reinforcers, but that with minimal prior instructions the lower SES performance under the signal condition would suffer. Support was also found for the prediction that upper SES subjects would perform equally well under all instructions versus reinforcement conditions.

The young child's discrimination of obliques.

The five-year old child, in common with other species, has difficulty in remembering the slope of an oblique stimulus, but not of a horizontal or vertical stimulus. Two experiments are described. The first shows that the relative difficulty with obliques is not caused by the child remembering orientation in relation to background features. The second shows that the five-year old can remember obliques, but that this memory is fragile.

Children's discrimination of rhyme.

A CVCC rhyming test, which had two slightly different types of auditory differentiation, was given to 273 kindergarten to third-grade children. A related rhyming test was also given to 62 of the kindergarten children. The rhyming category which required differentiation at the ends of words was more difficult than the category which required differentiation within the words. Correct responses increased with successive grade levels, but category differences remained. Sex differences were not significant. The rhyming test which had initial consonant similarities of stimulus and nonrhyming response words was more difficult for the kindergarten children than the rhyming test which did not have such similarities.

Socioeconomic Status Differences in Children's Discrimination Learning as Related to the Reward and Information Functions of Response-Contingent Stimuli

Socioeconomic Status Differences in Children's Discrimination Learning as Related to the Reward and Information Functions of Response-Contingent Stimuli

Roles of approval motivation and social reinforcement in children's discrimination learning.

Roles of approval motivation and social reinforcement in children's discrimination learning.

Verbal Reinforcement Combinations, Task Complexity, Age and Sex in Children's Discrimination Learning

144 boys and girls in Grades 2 and 6 were presented a 2-choice simultaneous brightness-discrimination task. Ss were either verbally reinforced for correct responses (Rn), verbally punished for incorrect responses (Wn), or verbally reinforced for correct and punished for incorrect responses (RW). Two levels of task complexity defined as the number of irrelevant stimulus dimensions were utilized. Regardless of Ss' sex, age, or the complexity of the task, the Rn combination produced significantly slower learning than did the nearly equivalent Wn and RW combinations. The simple task was learned significantly more rapidly than the complex task.

The effect of partially valid cues on children's discrimination learning

Second grade children were administered a two-choice discrimination learning task in which irrelevant dimensions were correlated .50, .75, or 1.00 with the 100 percent rewarded cue. The results indicated that when a cue was partially correlated with reward .75, learning was retarded. When all cues were relevant and redundant ( r = 1.00), learning was most rapid. These results supported an implication of Hypothesis Testing Theory that partially correlated or partially valid cues would not be eliminated rapidly, thus retarding acquisition of the correct response.

Effects of stimulus complexity and dimensionality on children's discrimination of forms.

In each of 2 experiments, kindergarten children were presented with either simple stimuli (e.g., square, triangle, regular trapezoid) or complex stimuli (irregular pentagons) in a form-discrimination task. Half the Ss in each experiment were trained on 2-dimensional stimuli and half on 3-dimensional stimuli. Simple forms were significantly easier to discriminate than complex forms. Neither stimulus dimensionality nor the interaction between dimensionality and complexity was significant.

Imagery and vocalization strategies in children's verbal discrimination learning.

Imagery and vocalization strategies in children's verbal discrimination learning.

Variables in color perception of young children

The purpose of this research is to make available information about young children's color perception within value, chroma, and hue variables. Most previous studies of children's color perception use only light, saturated focal colors. In this study, the Munsell color matrices are divided into nine combinations of low, medium, and high chroma and low, medium, and high value to investigate the effects of varying components of lightness and saturation within hues. Two levels of difficulty in six hues are measured: green, red, purple, blue, orange, and yellow. Results show that in order to predict a young child's discrimination ability, it is necessary to have value, chroma, and hue specified. While young children are found to be surprisingly skilled across all color discriminations, discriminations using low saturation and low lightness are most difficult and slowest, regardless of hue. Discriminations of middle and high saturation and lightness are easy and fastest. Differences in hue discrimination are least stable but generally, green and red are most difficult and slowest; orange and yellow are easiest and fastest. Error rate, but not latency, is lower under a feedback and correction condition than a reward-alone condition.

Methodological Improvements in the Assessment of Phonological Discrimination in Children

Methodological Improvements in the Assessment of Phonological Discrimination in Children

Transfer of training: Some boundary conditions and initial theory

A series of 5 experiments was conducted with preschool and kindergarten children. Experiments I and II employed a verbal pretraining task followed by transfer to a simultaneous, 2-choice discrimination. The interest was in comparing the predictions generated by theorists who stress the role of either verbal or perceptual factors in children's discrimination learning. The data were inconsistent with the predictions generated from either position. Essentially, there was no sign of any transfer from the verbal pretraining task to the transfer discrimination. At this point, the focus of the research shifted, and the remaining experiments were addressed to the main point of the present paper, assessing the conditions under which transfer from one task to another will, or will not, be obtained. Experiments III and IV led to the general conclusion that transfer is not obtained when the format of the transfer task differs from that of the training problem. As an example, transfer is not obtained when the training problem is a successive discrimination and the transfer task is a simultaneous discrimination, or the reverse. Experiment V allowed a further test of this conclusion and consisted of a replication of Exps. I and II with the exception that the verbal pretraining task was followed by a successive discrimination rather than a simultaneous one. In this experiment, transfer was obtained and was consistent with predictions stemming from a model stressing the role of perceptual, rather than verbal, factors. The data were discussed in terms of an outline of an empirically based theory of transfer. Possible mechanisms underlying the transfer failures were also discussed, along with methods of deciding between these competing formulations.

Stimulus interaction and problem difficulty in children's discrimination learning

The relative difficulty of two discrimination-learning problems was deduced from the Stimulus Interaction Hypothesis and tested with third- and fourth-grade children. The findings were inconsistent with the prediction derived from this theory. Although changes in the assumptions of some of the parameter values did not alter the original prediction, the assumed shape of the generalization gradients was found to influence the predicted outcome. Moreover, with the substitution of generalization gradients concave to the base for the original exponential functions, the Stimulus Interaction Hypothesis was able to account for the results of the experiment. However, further analysis revealed that the explanation underlying the successful deduction was not entirely adequate. It was suggested that this inadequacy may be due to the lack of an assumption that relational cues can function as effective stimuli for children in discrimination-learning problems.

OBSERVING BEHAVIOR AND CHILDREN'S DISCRIMINATION LEARNING

DOCUMENT RESUME 24 CG 005 156 Goldstein, Sondra B.; Siegel, Alexander W. Observing Behavior and Children's Discrimination Learning; Learning Research and Development Center Working Paper Number 52. Pittsburgh Univ., Pa. Learning Research and Development Center. Office of Education (DHEW), Washington, D.C. Bureau of Research. BR-5-0253 Dec 69 OEC-4-10-158 28p., EDRS Price MF-$0.25 HC-$1.50 Behavior Patterns, *Children, Conditioned Response, *Discrimination Learning, *Learning, Learning Theories, Performance Factors, *Reinforcement, *Stimuli In this study, 48 third-grade children learned a successive, two-choice discrimination under one of three conditions: (1) immediate reinforcement (IM) , (2) 10-second empty delay (ED) , and (3) 10-second delay with the discriminative stimuli in view of S (FD). The performances of groups IM and FD were only marginally different, and were both superior to that of group ED. The reversal performances of the three groups did not differ significantly. Average latencies were significantly longer in groups FD and ED than in IM. It was condluded that in group FD a sct to observe stimuli was established during delay which generalized to the preresponse interval and facilitated performance. (Author) U N IV E R S IT Y O F P I R & D C E N T E R W O R K IN G PA PE R 52 O B SE R V IN G B E H A V IO R A N D C H IL D R E N 'S D SC R IM IN A T IO N L E A R N IN G SO N D R A B L E V IN S G O L D ST E IN A N D A L E X A N D E R W . IE G E L U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE Lrs PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS CX, STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. **40 re% CD IL/ OBSERVING BEHAVIOR AND CHILDREN'S DISCRIMINATION LEARNING Sondra B. Goldstein and Alexander W. Siegel Learning Research and Development Center University of Pittsburgh

Observing Behavior and Children's Discrimination Learning

Observing Behavior and Children's Discrimination Learning

A Reexamination of the Role of Incentive in Children's Discrimination Learning

MCCULLERS, JOHN C., and MARTIN, JUDITH A. GARDINER. A Reexamination of the Role of Incentive in Children's Discrimination Learning. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1971, 42, 827-837. 2 studies are reported. The first examined the value of 12 typical incentive objects among 24 fourth-grade children by means of (a) rating scale, (b) paired comparisons, and (c) behavioral choice. Significant agreement was obtained between methods, and significant differences were obtained between objects. In the second study, 72 fourth graders reevaluated 4 objects from the first study and then performed in a discrimination learning task that manipulated: (a) type of reinforcement (S's most or least preferred object, or verbal feedback), (b) reinforcement contingency (for correct responses or errors), and (c) instructions (whether or not S was informed of the reinforcement contingency). Better performance was associated with higher-valued incentives, but high-value