The effects of differential outcomes and different types of consequential stimuli on 7-year-old children’s discriminative learning and memory

Learning & Behavior, Jul 2013

Researchers have demonstrated that discriminative learning is facilitated when a particular outcome is associated with each relation to be learned. Our primary purpose in the two experiments reported here was to assess whether the differential outcomes procedure (DOP) would enhance 7-year-old children’s learning of symbolic discriminations using three different forms of consequences in which (1) reinforcers are given when correct choices are made (“+”), (2) reinforcers are withdrawn when errors are made (“−”), or (3) children receive a reinforcer following a correct choice and lose one following an incorrect choice (“+/−”), as well as different types of reinforcers (secondary and primary reinforcers, Experiment 1; primary reinforcers alone, Experiment 2). Participants learned the task faster and showed significantly better performance whenever differential outcomes were arranged independently of (1) the way of providing consequences (+, −, or +/−) and (2) the type of reinforcers being used. Interestingly, as in a previous study with 5-year-old children (Martínez, Estévez, Fuentes, & Overmier, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 62(8):1617–1630, 2009), the use of the DOP also enhanced long-term persistence of learning.

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The effects of differential outcomes and different types of consequential stimuli on 7-year-old children’s discriminative learning and memory

Learn Behav The effects of differential outcomes and different types of consequential stimuli on 7-year-old children's discriminative learning and memory Lourdes Martnez Pilar Flores Carmen Gonzlez-Salinas Luis J. Fuentes Angeles F. Estvez 0 ) Departamento de Psicologia, Universidad de Almeria , 04120 Almeria , Spain Researchers have demonstrated that discriminative learning is facilitated when a particular outcome is associated with each relation to be learned. Our primary purpose in the two experiments reported here was to assess whether the differential outcomes procedure (DOP) would enhance 7-year-old children's learning of symbolic discriminations using three different forms of consequences in which (1) reinforcers are given when correct choices are made (+), (2) reinforcers are withdrawn when errors are made (), or (3) children receive a reinforcer following a correct choice and lose one following an incorrect choice (+/), as well as different types of reinforcers (secondary and primary reinforcers, Experiment 1; primary reinforcers alone, Experiment 2). Participants learned the task faster and showed significantly better performance whenever differential outcomes were arranged independently of (1) the way of providing consequences (+, , or +/) and (2) the type of reinforcers being used. Interestingly, as in a previous study with 5-year-old children (Martnez, Estvez, Fuentes, & Overmier, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 62(8):1617-1630, 2009), the use of the DOP also enhanced long-term persistence of learning. Differential outcomes procedure; Types of consequential stimuli; Discriminative learning; 7-year-old children - The differential outcomes effect (DOE) refers specifically to the increase in speed of acquisition or terminal accuracy that occurs in a conditional discrimination training when each discriminative stimulusresponse sequence is always followed by a particular outcome. In 1970, Trapold provided an early demonstration of this phenomenon. He exposed a group of rats to a discrimination problem that required a response to one lever (e.g., the right lever) in the presence of one stimulus (e.g., a tone), and a response to a second lever (e.g., the left lever) in the presence of another stimulus (e.g., a click). Trapold observed an increased rate of acquisition and a greater accuracy when the correct choice of the right lever was followed by pellets and the correct choice of the left lever was followed by sucrose than when both correct responses produced the same reinforcerfor instance, pellets. The DOE has been widely demostrated with animals, especially with rats and pigeons, and with different types of reinforcers (for reviews, see Goeters, Blakely, & Poling, 1992; Urcuioli, 2005). By contrast, the number of studies exploring the differential outcomes procedure (DOP) in humans is still relatively limited. Shepp (1962, 1964) was one of the first authors to suggest a possible positive effect of the DOP on human learning. Subsequently, four studies that explored the acquisition of two-choice conditional discriminations found the DOE in children with autism (Litt & Schreibman, 1981) and in children and adults with developmental disabilities (Malanga & Poling, 1992; Saunders & Sailor, 1979; Shepp, 1962). Since these early studies, research has developed in two major directions: one focusing on the usefulness of the differential outcomes methodology in improving discriminative learning, another focusing on the role of this procedure in human memory. Although the DOP has been shown to improve memory-based performance in animals (e.g., Brodigan & Peterson, 1976; DeMarse & Urcuioli, 1994; Savage & Langlais, 1995; Savage, Pitkin, & Careri, 1999), very few studies have explored this issue in humans. Hochhalter, Sweeney, Bakke, Holub, and Overmier (2000) demonstrated, for the first time, that specific outcomes improved recognition memory in people with memory problems. In fact, they found that three patients with alcohol-induced amnesia showed significantly better delayed face recognition when differential outcomes were arranged. Later on, the potential of the DOP for aiding human memory has also been evident in four studies conducted with young people (Martella, Plaza, Estvez, & Fuentes, 2012; Plaza, Estvez, Lpez-Crespo, & Fuentes, 2011), with older adults (Lpez-Crespo, Plaza, Fuentes, & Estvez, 2009), and with Alzheimers disease patients (Plaza, Lpez-Crespo, Antnez, Fuentes, & Estvez, 2012). In these studies, delayed face recognition performance of participants was improved by pairing each correct response with a specific outcome. Regarding discriminative learning, several studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of the DOP in facilitating the acquisition of conditional symbolic discriminations across different populations, such as children and adults without developmental disabilities (e.g., Estvez & Fuentes, 2003; Estvez, Fuentes, Mar-Beffa, Gnzalez, & lvarez, 2001; Estvez (...truncated)


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Lourdes Martínez, Pilar Flores, Carmen González-Salinas, Luis J. Fuentes, Angeles F. Estévez. The effects of differential outcomes and different types of consequential stimuli on 7-year-old children’s discriminative learning and memory, Learning & Behavior, 2013, pp. 298-308, Volume 41, Issue 3, DOI: 10.3758/s13420-013-0105-y