This study used a learning-set task to assess the ability of four 10-month-old infants to acquire an object discrimination. (Author/JMB)

Twenty 3- to 5-year-olds were required to discriminate between a simultaneously-presented pair of displays having common elements but differentiated by the presence of a distinctive feature in one of the displays. The effect of explicit verbal feedback for incorrect choices on the learning of discriminations was examined. (JH)

Competing explanations of the beneficial effect of spacing in retardate discrimination learning were tested. Results are inconsistent with consolidation and rehearsal theories but support the prediction of the Geber, Greenfield, and House spacing model that forgetting from short-term memory facilities retardate learning. (Author/SB)

One of the most robust and reliable learning phenomena documented in the animal learning literature is the enhancement of discriminative performance by differential outcomes. To date, very few studies have focused on this effect in humans. The results obtained in these studies support the potential use of the differential outcomes procedure in…

The role of memory factors in the vowel discrimination of normal and at-risk 8-week-old infants was examined by studying the categorical versus continuous discrimination of very brief vowels in a nonnutritive sucking paradigm. Discrimination of the silent delay interval between the last familiar and the first novel stimulus was also examined.…

In order to investigate the hypothesis that autistic children tend to learn new discriminations by responding to only a restricted number of available cues, this study assessed the feasibility of teaching autistic children to respond to multiple cues. (SB)

Two experiments are reported that reveal the sources of the developmental difference reported by Crane and Ross that second graders learned more than sixth graders about attributes made relevant after solution of a discrimination task. Experiments use technique whereby children verbalize their hypotheses during solution of a discrimination…

These findings suggest that a high density of negative feedback induces both reflective and impulsive children to make fewer errors than does positive feedback. (Authors)

Four hundred children ages 5, 9, and 12 were given a component selection task with stimuli differing in color and shape. Results indicate a greater tendency for older than younger children to withdraw attention from a normally dominant component when advantageous to adopt another feature as the primary functional cue. (Author/SB)