SIMPLE DISCRIMINATION AND CONCEPTUAL BEHAVIOR BASED ON LOCATION: INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF TRAINING

Abstract

Conceptual behavior encompasses formation of stimulus classes with discrimination between classes and generalization within class. This research verified the relationship between the type of stimulus modification during discrimination training and the acquisition of position discrimination and related conceptual behavior. Fifteen 4-6 year-old children were exposed to simple position discrimination tasks. Three experimental conditions (gradual change – MG; multiple exemplars – ME; and no change - SM, of S+ and S- stimuli) were programmed for all participants. Participants should select in one condition the stimulus which had a relational element placed inside,overorontheleftofareferenceelement.Trainingofadifferentpositionwasinterspersedwithtestsof conceptual behavior which presented for selection trained and new stimuli which differed only in respect to the critical dimension. In general, the percentage of correct responses during the training was high for all conditions with fewer errors in MG. During conceptual behavior tests, however, percentages of correct responses were above chance level only after the SM discriminative training. Procedures MG and ME reduced errors and facilitated the establishment of discriminations between training stimuli which differed in more than one dimension. SM procedure, with several trials presenting stimuli with critical difference, produced conceptual behavior. Results suggest that the combination of varying stimulus along the training and repeated trials with stimuli differing only in the relevant dimension are necessary to speed the acquisition of discriminations, to prevent by-products of errors and to produce stimulus control by critical dimension.Key words: errorless learning, stimulus control shaping, multiple exemplars, trial-and-error, position discrimination, kindergarten.