The effect of change in stimuli on the transfer of dimensional pretraining to the discrimination learning of kindergarten children.
Kindergarten children were given verbal pretaining prior to a simultaneous discrimination learning task under 1 or 2 stimulus conditions. For half the children, the stimuli were changed from the pretaining task to the criterion task; for the other half, the stimuli were identical in the 2 tasks. During pretaining, the children learned to label the values of the dimension that would be either relevant, constant, or irrelevant in discrimination learning. When the stimuli were identical in 2 tasks, pretaining produced significant facilitation and interference effects in discrimination performance. The pretaining effects in the changed-stimulus condition were greatly attenuated and nonsignificant. The relation of these results to earlier findings and to studies of dimensional attention in general is discussed.
D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003118:Color Perception; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D005556:Form Perception; D006801:Humans; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D012858:Size Perception; D014163:Transfer, Psychology