Oddity Task Research Articles

Effect of Identity versus Oddity Training on Novel Matching-to-Sample Responding after Naming

Identity and oddity matching-to-sample tasks were arranged for different groups of five-year-old children. The children were then taught to name stimuli A1, B1, A2, and B2, which had not occurred in the identity or oddity task. Two names were taught; one was used for two stimuli and the other name for the other two stimuli. Finally, matching-to-sample tests with A1, B1, A2, and B2 were carried out. These offered a choice between a comparison with the same name as the sample and a comparison with a name other than that of the sample. The children who had received identity training tended to choose the comparison with the same name as the sample. The children who had received oddity training tended to choose the comparison with the other name. The results obtained with the oddity group suggest that giving the same name to two stimuli is not sufficient for equivalence of these stimuli. The results obtained with both groups can be explained on the basis of pre-experimental abstraction processes.

A Reading-Level Design Study of Phonological Skills Underlying Fourth-Grade Children's Word Reading Difficulties

A 3-group reading-level design was used to investigate phonological analysis, verbal working memory, and pseudoword reading performance in less skilled fourth-grade readers. Children were given phonological oddity tasks assessing their sensitivity to subsyllabic and phonemic units, together with standardized tests of verbal working memory and pseudoword reading. Less skilled fourth-grade readers performed lower than both chronological age and reading-level controls on the phonological oddity and pseudoword reading tests. Less skilled fourth-grade readers performed at the same level as skilled second-grade readers on a test of verbal working memory. Skilled fourth-grade readers scored higher than both other groups on this test. Correlational analyses were consistent with the view that phonological analysis skills contribute more strongly than verbal working memory skills to children's decoding abilities.

Teaching prereading skills with a talking computer

The phonological awareness skills of nonreaders were trained using an oddity task (e.g., which word in the series ‘sit’, ‘fit’, ‘cat’ has the odd sound in its middle position). As training progressed, the basis of the oddity decision was shifted from rhyming, to consonant onsets, to consonant and vowel phonemes. The words were spoken by a DECtalk speech synthesizer. One of the experimental groups was given printed as well as computer generated speech feedback while the other was given just computer speech feedback. The alternative training control group based their oddity decisions on meaning rather than sound and was also given just computer speech feedback. Only children with low letter-sound knowledge showed pre-test to post-test gains in performance on a rhyming task compared to the control group, and these gains were not influenced by print feedback. In contrast, only children with high letter-sound knowledge, who were given print feedback during learning, showed pre-test to post-test gains in performance on a phoneme deletion task compared to the control group. These results indicate that a combination of high letter-sound knowledge and print feedback facilitates awareness of phonemes among children who cannot yet read or spell, but awareness of rimes is not facilitated by either high letter-sound knowledge or print feedback. Although consistent with bi-directional, causal models of phonological awareness and literacy, these results indicate that the definition of literacy employed by such models may require expansion. This new definition should include proto-literacy — knowledge of letter-sound and other print-sound relationships that are learned before becoming literate and that may influence the acquisition of awareness of some sub-syllabic units of speech.

Phonological analysis as a function of age and exposure to reading instruction

ABSTRACTThis study was designed to test the prediction that, whereas sensitivity to subsyllabic phonological units might emerge prior to alphabetic reading instruction, phonemic analysis skills develop as a consequence of reading instruction. A series of phonological oddity tasks was devised, assessing children's sensitivity to subsyllabic onset and rime units, and to phonemes. These tasks were administered to three groups of children. The first group comprised the oldest children of a sample of kindergarten children. The second and third groups comprised the youngest and oldest children from a first-grade sample. The kindergarten group was equivalent to the younger first-grade group in terms of general verbal maturity, but had not been exposed to reading instruction. The younger first-grade sample was verbally less mature than the older first-grade sample, but had equivalent exposure to reading instruction. On all tasks, both first-grade groups performed at equivalent levels, and both groups did better than the kindergarten group. In all groups, onset and rime unity oddity tasks were of equal difficulty, but phoneme oddity tasks were more difficult than rime oddity tasks. Although some of the kindergarten children could reliably focus on onset and rime units, none performed above chance on the phoneme oddity tasks. Further analyses indicated that rime/onset oddity performance explained variation in very early reading achievement more reliably than phoneme oddity performance.

正刺激情報は間接転移にプラスにならない

Three groups of male Japanese monkeys were given two block discrimination training in WGTA. Two groups of subjects were trained in modified successive reversals. Before each reversal, one group (group PSI, n=3) was presented with positive stimulus for the next reversal and the response to it was rewarded. Another group (Group NSI, n=4) was informed of negative stimulus by being exposed to unbaited new negative stimulus. The reversals were repeated for 30 and 20 times for the first and the second blocks of training, respectively. Still another group (Group OT, n=4) was given two blocks of overtraining trials. Before, in the middle of, and after the two blocks of training, the subjects of all three groups were faced with a series of oddity task probes.

Tactual learning and cross-modal transfer of an oddity problem in young children

The ability to solve tactual oddity problems, and transfer of oddity learning across the visual and the tactual modalities, was studied in 3- to 8-year-old children ( N = 294). Oddity tasks consisting of one odd and two equal objects were made from stimuli that were easily discriminated visually and tactually. The results showed that tactual oddity learning increased gradually with age. The growth in tactual performance begins later than visual, suggesting that children are more adept at encoding visual stimulus invariances or relational properties than tactual ones. Bidirectional cross-modal transfer of oddity learning was found, supporting the suggestion that such transfer occurs when training and transfer oddity tasks share a common vehicle dimension. The cross-modal effect also shows that oddity learning is independent of a specific modality-labeled perceptual context. Our results are consistent with the view that development of oddity learning depends on a single rather than a dual process, and that the oddity relation may be treated as an amodal stimulus feature.

Associative processes in differentially reared monkeys (Macaca mulatta): sensory preconditioning.

Past research has indicated that with regard to performance in formal learning test situations, early socially isolated rhesus monkeys display atypical reactions to noxious stimuli, deficits in response inhibition, slower adaptation to reinforcement contingencies, and lower performance on oddity tasks. Twelve adult rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta), 6 who had been reared in total isolation for the first 9 months of life 19 years earlier, and 6 socially reared, were tested in a sensory preconditioning paradigm. In phase I, two neutral stimuli (S1-S2) were paired in contiguous fashion; in phase II the S2 stimulus was conditioned to elicit a startle response; and in phase III the S1 stimulus was presented to assess whether an association between the two stimuli had been formed during the initial phase. Instead of a deficit, isolate subjects showed significantly more response transfer during phase III as compared to the controls. The superior performance displayed by isolates is viewed as resulting from a slower habituation to S1-S2 stimuli during preconditioning along with the perseveration of responses during testing. These findings support the notion that atypical cognitive processing across a lifespan is a consequence of early social impoverishment.

Oddity performance in preschool children at risk for mental retardation: Transfer and maintenance

The oddity performance of five preschool children at risk for mental retardation was facilitated by increasing the number of nonodd elements in a visual array. A combination intrasubject reversal and multiple baseline across subjects design indicated the internal validity of interventions designed to enhance the perceptual salience and consequent stimulus control of the odd stimulus. Results demonstrate that transfer and maintenance of oddity learning can be obtained even with individuals for whom correct oddity responding is uncommon. The typically poor performance of young and developmentally delayed children as compared to nondelayed children on tasks such as the oddity task may be attributable to a lower sensitivity to relational information.

Perceptual and conceptual variants of the oddity task as a predictor of learning disability

This paper compares LD and non-LD peers on eight variants of the oddity task. This study is part of a larger programmatic research effort aimed at the development of a screening test to detect preschool children who currently pass existing screening tests but, nonetheless, subsequently experience school failure. The theoretical orientation of this approach is to assess active, ongoing cognitive processing ability. The oddity task, which can be structured to assess such processing ability, was evaluated in the present study as a potential component of this screening test. Consistent with a priori predictions, the data resulted in strong group and developmental differences. Oddity performance increased over age, with the non-LD children performing consistently better than their LD peers at each age. Perceptual and conceptual factors were manipulated across the oddity variations, and both factors contributed to group differences. These results were discussed in relationship to early diagnosis and prognosis for learning disabilities that might result from deficiencies in abstract processing ability.

Matching and Oddity Learning in the Pigeon: Transfer Effects and the Absence of Relational Learning

Three experiments examined the extent to which pigeons trained on a matching or oddity discrimination with one pair of colours showed transfer when tested on a new matching or oddity discrimination with a new pair of colours. Experiment 1 examined the effects of key spacing and a delay procedure and replicated previous reports that in the transfer stage subjects given the same kind of problem (Non-shift condition) in general learn more rapidly than those given the opposite problem (Shift condition). However, this difference appeared only when pigeons given matching in both training and transfer stages were compared to those shifted from oddity to matching; it did not appear in birds transferred to oddity. Transfer was not significantly affected by key spacing or by the delay. Experiments 2 and 3 examined transfer from a non-relational conditional discrimination based on one set of colours to a subsequent matching or oddity task based on two new colours. Both a comparison between the results of Experiment 1 and 2 and the corresponding within-experiment comparison from Experiment 3 showed that transfer from conditional training to matching was as great as from prior training on matching, while prior training on oddity produced negative transfer on shift to matching. It was suggested that this negative transfer occurs because pigeons trained on oddity have not learned to override an initial bias towards the odd stimulus in an array. Whatever the correct explanation; the present results provide no support for the claim that pigeons solve matching or oddity discriminations relationally.

移調課題と特異課題で学習されるものの比較

移調課題と特異課題で学習されるものの比較

Oddity and Dimension-Abstracted Oddity (DAO) in Humans

Six conceptual oddity and dimension-abstracted oddity (DAO) tasks were administered to college students. Hypothetically, the tasks varied in diffi­ culty as functions of the number of relevant, constant, and ambiguous cues, and the research investigated whether performance was related to the hypothesized difficulty (with Task 1 being easiest and Task 6 most difficult). Tasks 5 and 6 required significantly more trials to criterion than Tasks 1 through 4, and Task 4 required more trials than Tasks 1 and 2. Additionally, response latency was significantly longer on Task 6 than on Tasks 2 and 3, and on Task 5 than on Tasks 2, 3, and 4. Discussion con­ siders differences between humans and squirrel monkeys in the order of dif­ ficulty of the six tasks as a function of trichromatic versus protonomalous and dichromatic color vision, and the use of the task hierarchy for onto­ genetic and phylogenetic comparisons. The oddity problem has long been used as a test of conceptual ability in both human and nonhuman animals. It has also been used to study cognitive development in children (e.g., GoUin, Saravo, & Salter, 1967; Lipsett & Serunian, 1963; Sugimura, 1981). Further, both oddity and dimension-abstracted oddity are significant com­ ponents of the Halstead Category Test (Halstead, 1947), a widely used test in the assessment of human brain damage. Apparently, Bernstein ( 1961) was the first to define and use the term dimension-abstracted oddity (DAO). Thomas and Frost (1983), suggesting a more general definition than Bernstein's, stated that the :; difference between oddity and DAO is that the nonodd stimuli in od­ dity problems are identical, whereas the nonodd stimuli in DAO tasks are not identical but share more properties with each other than they do with the odd stimulus. Dimension-abstracted oddity has also been used to test conceptual ability in human and nonhu

Oddity and Discrimination Learning after Pretraining on a Nonrepeated Oddity Task

128 kindergarten children learned an oddity task with no repeated stimuli until they reached one of the three criteria of 4/4, 8/8, and 8/8 + 20 correct responses, and then they were given either an oddity task with repeated stimuli or a discrimination task. With increasing numbers of pretraining trials, the repeated oddity learning became significantly easier but ease of the discrimination learning did not change significantly. These findings were interpreted as showing that attention to relational cues increased to a high level through learning the nonrepeated oddity task, whereas attention to absolute cues remained at almost the same level as in the control group with no pretraining.

Oddity and Dimension-Abstracted Oddity (DAO) in Squirrel Monkeys

Four squirrel monkeys were trained on 10 pretraining oddity problems and a series of 6 conceptual oddity and dimension-abstracted oddity (DAO) tasks. These six tasks were presumed on logical grounds to comprise six levels of difficulty and were administered in the presumed order of difficulty. All tasks were performed significantly better than chance, but performances on tasks 1, 2, and 4 were better than those on tasks 3, 5, and 6. Discussion con­ sidered the kinds of evidence that are necessary for demonstrations of con­ ceptual oddity and DAO performances as well as the implications of the present results for the presumed hierarchy of conceptual oddity and DAO tasks used here. The oddity problem has a long history of use in animal psychology, where it has been viewed as a test of conceptual or abstracting ability (see French, 1965; Strong & Hedges, 1966, for brief reviews of the literature). Additionally, the oddity problem has been used to study the cognitive development of children (e.g .. , Lipsett & Serunian, 1963; Vaughter, 1975), and oddity and dimension-abstracted oddity (DAO) are significant aspects of the Halstead Category Test (Halstead, 1947), a widely used test in the assessment of human brain damage. The distinction between oddity and dimension-abstracted oddity (DAO) is that in oddity the nonodd stimuli are identical, whereas in DAO, the nonodd stimuli are not identical, but they share prop­ erties that make them more similar to each other than to the odd stimulus. Bernstein (1961) appears to have been the first to use DAO with nonhuman animals. His results indicated that monkeys (Macaca mulatta and Macaca nemestrina) and apes (Pan troglodytes and Pongo pygmaeus) are capable of performing DAO successfully and that apes performed better than monkeys; the apes ranged from 530 to 640 trials to criterion and the monkeys ranged from 940 to 2060 trials to cri­ terion. Strong, Drash, and Hedges (1968) confirmed Bernstein's find

The Use ofIQandMAas Measures of Learning Rate with Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence

Summary Weir and Zigler have opposing hypotheses concerning the use of IQ or MA as the best measure of learning rate. This study with 90 children sought to determine whether IQ or MA was the best predictor of learning rate on a dimension-abstracted oddity task. Cattell and Horn's distinction between fluid ability (Gf) and crystallized ability (Gc) was used as the model of intelligence; WISC-R Digit-Span and Vocabulary subtests were used to assess Gf and Gc respectively. IQ was the best predictor of problem-solving ability with Gf; the converse was true for Gc. Results show that whether MA or IQ is the best indicator of learning rate depends upon what type of intelligence is considered. MA-IQ, type of intelligence, and learning relationships are more complex than previously hypothesized.

Oddity learning in the pigeon: Effect of negative instances, correction, and number of incorrect alternatives

Pigeons have difficulty learning a standard oddity task involving two colors and three stimulus positions. In Experiment 1, performance on standard noncorrection trials was compared with performance on (1) rerun correction trials in which errors resulted in trial repetition, (2) noncorrection trials with added “negative instance” trials involving presentation of three stimuli, all of which matched, and (3) a combination of correction and added negative instance trials. Results indicated that negative instances, but not correction trials, significantly facilitated oddity performance. In Experiment 2, Phase 1, number of stimulus positions lit (three or five) was factorially manipulated with number of positions on which the odd stimulus could appear (three or five). An increase in number of positions lit, but not number of positions that could be odd, facilitated performance. In Phase 2, birds transferred from trials with five positions lit to four positions lit performed significantly better than controls; but in Phase 3, the same birds did not perform significantly better than controls when transferred to trials with three positions lit. In both experiments, analysis of performance as a function of response position indicated better performance at the end of each display than in the middle. These results, together with the group performance differences in Experiment 2, suggest that oddity learning in pigeons involves a size, or number, discrimination.

Early Identification of Learning Disabilities: Facts and Fallacies

Previous articleNext article No AccessEarly Identification of Learning Disabilities: Facts and FallaciesCarol Strickland Beers and James Wheelock BeersCarol Strickland Beers Search for more articles by this author and James Wheelock Beers Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Elementary School Journal Volume 81, Number 2Nov., 1980 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/461209 Views: 11Total views on this site Citations: 14Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1980 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Marcia Strong Scott, Christine F. Delgado Using educational placement in third grade to select and validate a preschool screening measure, Psychology in the Schools 40, no.66 (Oct 2003): 565–582.https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.10124Jim Cummins HER Classic Reprint: Empowering Minority Students: A Framework for Intervention, Harvard Educational Review 71, no.44 (Dec 2001): 649–676.https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.71.4.j261357m62846812Charles E. Woodul, Michael R. Vitale, Barbara J. Scott Using a Cooperative Multimedia Learning Environment to Enhance Learning and Affective Self-Perceptions of at-Risk Students in Grade 8, Journal of Educational Technology Systems 28, no.33 (Jul 2016): 239–252.https://doi.org/10.2190/0NFW-R5GV-X2V8-A7F9Eleanor Armour-Thomas, Sharon-ann Gopaul-McNicol In Search of Correlates of Learning Underlying “Learning Disability” Using a Bio-Ecological Assessment System, Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless 6, no.22 (Jul 2016): 143–159.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02938533Marcia S. Scott, Lois-Lynn Stoyko Deuel, Angelika H. Claussen, Mercedes Sanchez Identifying Young Children with Mild Cognitive Deficiencies, Diagnostique 19, no.11 (Sep 2016): 335–359.https://doi.org/10.1177/153450849301900102Marcia S. Scott, Daryl B. Greenfield The screening potential of a taxonomic information task for the detection of learning disabled and mildly retarded children, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 12, no.44 (Oct 1991): 429–446.https://doi.org/10.1016/0193-3973(91)90019-ZKathleen C. Harris, Robert S. Rueda, Sister Phyllis Supancheck A Descriptive Study of Literacy Events in Secondary Special Education Programs in Linguistically Diverse Schools, Remedial and Special Education 11, no.44 (Aug 2016): 20–28.https://doi.org/10.1177/074193259001100406Rebecca H. Felton, Idalyn S. Brown Phonological processes as predictors of specific reading skills in children at risk for reading failure, Reading and Writing 2, no.11 (Jan 1990): 39–59.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00383373Jim Cummins A Theoretical Framework for Bilingual Special Education, Exceptional Children 56, no.22 (Jul 2016): 111–119.https://doi.org/10.1177/001440298905600203Susan L. Weltner-Brunton, Felicisima C. Serafica, Gary R. Friedt Is Earlier Better? Reading Achievement and WISC-R Stability in Earlier Vs. Later Identified Students with Learning Disabilities, Learning Disability Quarterly 11, no.11 (Aug 2016): 71–79.https://doi.org/10.2307/1511039Marcia S. Scott, Daryl B. Greenfield, Esther Sterental Abstract categorization ability as a predictor of learning disability classification, Intelligence 10, no.44 (Oct 1986): 377–387.https://doi.org/10.1016/0160-2896(86)90005-XJim Cummins Empowering Minority Students: A Framework for Intervention, Harvard Educational Review 56, no.11 (Apr 1986): 18–37.https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.56.1.b327234461607787Daryl B. Greenfield, Marcia S. Scott Perceptual and conceptual variants of the oddity task as a predictor of learning disability, Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 14, no.11 (Mar 1986): 135–148.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00917229Daryl B. Greenfield, Marcia S. Scott Individual differences in preschool children's knowledge of superordinate categories, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 6, no.44 (Oct 1985): 321–334.https://doi.org/10.1016/0193-3973(85)90007-3

Native language effects on the perception of liquids

In a study of the effect of language experience on speech perception, Miyawaki et al. (Percept. Psychophys. 1975) found classic categorical perception of the liquids [r] and [l] in native speakers of American English, but not in native Japanese, whose language lacks a liquid contrast. They tested oddity discrimination, using a synthetic [r]‐[l] continuum containing systematic variations in the F3 transition. Since the oddity task is believed to be very difficult, the current research investigated effects of the task requirements on discrimination via comparison of A × B and oddity discrimination tests with American and Japanese adults. Because spoken liquids show F1 and F2 differences in addition to the F3 difference, a new ten‐item synthetic continuum was used, which involved concurrent changes between [r] and [l] in all three formants. The American results replicated the earlier findings. Peaks and troughs in their performance on A × B and oddity tasks reflected categorical discrimination, and corresponded with predictions from the sharp category boundary they produced in an absolute identification test. The Japanese data also replicated Miyawaki et al., and contrasted with the Americans' results. Their identification functions were near chance throughout the continuum, and their discrimination performance for both tasks was non‐categorical, as predicted from identification results. Implications for effects of native language on phoneme perception will be discussed, along with methodological comparisons of the A × B and oddity tasks. [Supported by NICHD and NINCDS.]

Control of choice in conditional discriminations by sample-specific behaviors.

When sample-specific responding is occasioned by sample stimuli in matching and oddity tasks with pigeons, such responding controls the choices between comparison stimuli. This control was investigated in four experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, differential responding to the samples in line-line matching and line-line oddity was reversed following acquisition of these problems. The reversal interfered with reacquisition of the same conditional discrimination but facilitated acquisition of the opposite discrimination. In Experiment 3, pigeons initially trained on line-line matching were shifted to hue-line matching. Positive transfer occurred when correct choices in both tasks were paired with the same sample-response patterns. Conversely, negative transfer occurred when correct choices were paired with opposite patterns. In Experiment 4, two concurrent conditional discriminations were designed so that sample-response patterns were paired with specific sample stimuli, but not with correct choices. Faster acquisition occurred when response patterns differed within rather than between sample dimensions. Furthermore, sample-specific responding controlled choices when the dimensional stimuli were difficult to discriminate but not when they were easy to discriminate. The combined results are interpreted in terms of overshadowing. Visual stimuli that control choice can be overshadowed by sample-specific responding if the latter facilitates conditional discrimination acquisition.

Control of choice in conditional discriminations by sample-specific behaviors.

When sample-specific responding is occasioned by sample stimuli in matching and oddity tasks with pigeons, such responding controls the choices between comparison stimuli. This control was investigated in four experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, differential responding to the samples in line-line matching and line-line oddity was reversed following acquisition of these problems. The reversal interfered with reacquisition of the same conditional discrimination but facilitated acquisition of the opposite discrimination. In Experiment 3, pigeons initially trained on line-line matching were shifted to hue-line matching. Positive transfer occurred when correct choices in both tasks were paired with the same sample-response patterns. Conversely, negative transfer occurred when correct choices were paired with opposite patterns. In Experiment 4, two concurrent conditional discriminations were designed so that sample-response patterns were paired with specific sample stimuli, but not with correct choices. Faster acquisition occurred when response patterns differed within rather than between sample dimensions. Furthermore, sample-specific responding controlled choices when the dimensional stimuli were difficult to discriminate but not when they were easy to discriminate. The combined results are interpreted in terms of overshadowing. Visual stimuli that control choice can be overshadowed by sample-specific responding if the latter facilitates conditional discrimination acquisition.