Interference In Children Research Articles

Cue and incentive motivational properties of reinforcers in children's discrimination learning

Two sources of interference in children's discrimination learning were investigated: reinforcer cue properties, such as size, shape, and texture, and reinforcer incentive properties, linked to preference value. The effect of the former was studied by comparing a condition in which S received the same type of reinforcer for all correct responses with two multiple reward conditions, like those used by Shepp (1962), in which the reward varied from trial to trial between reinforcers differing in their cue properties. Incentive properties were investigated under multiple reward conditions by comparing reinforcers of equal preference value with those of unequal value. Results indicated that variation in both the cue and the incentive properties of rewards influences discrimination performance. The conditions in which reinforcer cue properties were varied, the multiple reward groups, produced poorer performance than the single reinforcer condition. In addition, where the occurrence of multiple rewards was correlated with irrelevant position cues, rewards of unequal, but not equal, preference value induced an interfering response strategy related to reinforcer-position contingencies.

Associative strength and degree of interference in children's verbal paired-associate learning

This study explored the effects of associative interference on the acquisition of pairs of common words by sixth-grade public school children. A mixed-list design was employed to explore the hypothesis that motivation produced by response competition might either facilitate or impair performance as a function of the associative strength of the items involved. Four types of “training” pairs were combined with two types of “test” pairs to form a total of 8 conditions. The hypothesis was supported with strongly associated test pairs in that performance on these pairs improved as training-pair interference increased. A corresponding decrement on weakly associated test items as interference increased was not obtained, however