The Effects of Verbal Reinforcement Combinations on Discrimination Learning and Discrimination Shift Learning in 1st and 3rd grade Children(PART I)

摘要

This experiment was designed to examine the effects of verbal reinforcement combinations on the original descrimination lerning and the descrimination shift learning in 1st grade and 3rd grade children. The Ss saw in front of him a series of a pair figures which were two of three kinds, namely, circle, triangle and square, each of which was painted red, green or yellow at random, and asked to choice a figure from each pair. After the Ss had reached the criterion of learning, successing nine correct responses, in the original discrimination learning, in which one of three colors was the correct stimulus, they learned the discrimination shift learning to the criterion, in which another color was the corect stimulus. Besides three combinations, of verbal reinforcement, that is, Right-Wrong (RW), Right-Nothing (RN), and Nothing-Wrong (NW), but three were also RN (w and N r) W that were RN and NW in which S was instructed about meaning of Nothing before the biginning of learning. The results as were follows : (1) Some 3rd grade children could not learn the problem except those under N r W condition, but almost all first grade children could learn the problem under all fine conditions. (2) In the original discrimination leaning, 1st grade children learned faster under RW and N r W conditions than under RN, and rrd grade children learned faster under RW condition than under RN w. (3) In the discrimination shift learning, 1st grade children learned the fastest under RW, and 3rd grade children leurned the fastest under RW w. (4) Acguirement of reinforcement value of N seems more rapid for 1st grade children than for 3rd grade children.