Abstract
This study was designed to determine whether the acquisition of second-order conditional discriminations becomes more rapid across new discriminations. Three normal grade-school children served as subjects. In general, performances improved across sets of second-order discriminations. Moreover, there was little disruption of performance when the second-order stimuli were changed from discrete forms to being compounded with the sample stimuli. Errors increased markedly when the second-order conditional discrimination shifted from one in which one secondorder conditional stimulus indicated that the original contingencies were reversed to a condition in which one second-order conditional stimulus indicated that the subject should select the same comparison stimulus regardless of which sample form was present. Errors prior to mastery decreased, however, across problems of the new type—thus reproducing the learning—set outcome with new stimuli.
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We are grateful to Dean Williams for help with laboratory tasks, Gladys Williams and Jennifer O’Donnell for reviewing previous versions of the manuscript, Pat White for editorial assistance, as well as the teachers, the children, and the parents of the Parsons Day Care Center. This research was conducted with a grant of Short Stays Abroad, 1991, from the University of Oviedo. Manuscript preparation was partly supported by National Health and Human Development Grants No. PO1-HD18955 and P30-HDO2528 to the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies, University of Kansas.
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Pérez-González, L.A., Spradlin, J.E. & Saunders, K.J. Learning-Set Outcome in Second-Order Conditional Discriminations. Psychol Rec 50, 429–442 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395364
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395364