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ACQUISITION OF ARBITRARY CONDITIONAL DISCRIMINATIONS BY YOUNG NORMALLY DEVELOPING CHILDREN
Author(s) -
Pilgrim Carol,
Jackson Jan,
Galizio Mark
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.2000.73-177
Subject(s) - psychology , nonsense , stimulus (psychology) , stimulus control , reinforcement , sample (material) , discrimination learning , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , social psychology , biochemistry , chemistry , chromatography , neuroscience , nicotine , gene
Three experiments investigated conditions designed to facilitate acquisition of arbitrary conditional discriminations in 3‐ to 6‐year‐old normally developing children. In Experiment 1, 6 subjects failed to master the arbitrary match‐to‐sample task under conditions of differential reinforcement alone, but 7 subjects did so when instructions or instructions and sample naming were added. In Experiment 2, sample naming introduced in a blocked‐trial arrangement resulted in acquisition, but only when the sample name was a nonsense syllable provided by the experimenter (5 of 7 subjects) and not when the sample name was generated by the subject (0 of 5 subjects). Experiment 3 demonstrated the effectiveness of a training sequence involving thematically related stimuli as an intermediate step facilitating the transition from identity to novel arbitrary relations. The difficulties in mastering arbitrary conditional discriminations shown here imply that further analyses with young children will be particularly important in efforts to investigate the development of theoretically important stimulus relations.