Louise S. Tighe

A Perceptual View of Conceptual Development

Our theoretical and research interests have focused on the interface between perception and learning. This interface poses two fundamental questions: To what extent is learning a matter of perception? and To what extent is perception a matter of learning? Each of these questions requires a consideration of the possible modification of perception through experience, the first because the issue is whether the changes observed in traditional learning paradigms can be attributed to changes in perception, and the second because the issue is whether experience does work enduring change in perception. In approaching either of these issues, then, the starting point must be a consideration of what is perceived in a given situation at the outset of a given experience and what are the possibilities for change in perception. The premise of this chapter, and of much of our work, is that in addressing these questions those working within the learning orientation have underestimated the perceptual possibilities of the typical laboratory task, with the consequence that important contributions of perception to learning and of learning to perception have been overlooked.

Overtraining and discrimination shift behavior in children

After receiving 30 overtraining trials in an initial two-dimensional discrimination, 6 yr. old children accomplished a subsequent reversal shift faster than an extradimensional shift. Control Ss trained only to criterion did not differ in speed of learning the two types of shifts. These results are discussed in relation to similar experiments with infrahuman Ss.

Memory for Instances and Categories in Children and Adults.

Abstract College subjects and 7-year-olds were trained in sorting 16 words into two conceptual categories. Training consisted of either three list presentations (Experiment I) or training to solution (Experiment II). Then either immediately or after a 3 to 4 week delay subjects received a recognition test which assessed memory for the instance vs categorical properties of the task stimuli by embedding words from the original list and from the list categories with confusion items from either the same or different categories as those on the original list. The data indicated that learning and memory were controlled primarily by categorical properties of the task items in adults and by specific instance properties in children. However, there was evidence that children had learned the categorical attributes of the task and may have differed from adults chiefly in their failure to utilize these attributes to assist learning and memory performance. The age differences in learning and memory were independent of the degree of initial training.

Optional shift behavior of children as a function of age, type of pretraining, and stimulus salience ☆

Abstract Optional shift behavior was studied within a factorial design involving four levels of age (nursery school children, first-, third-, and fifth-grade children), three types of pretraining (perceptual training, perceptual plus verbal labeling training, and a control condition), and two degrees of stimulus salience (objects vs. patterned stimulation). The perceptual and perceptual plus verbal pretraining procedures significantly and equally facilitated selection of optional reversal shift, and nursery children made fewer optional reversals than older S s. Degree of stimulus salience as manipulated here had no effect on shift behavior. The findings are discussed in relation to perceptual, attentional, and verbal mediation theories of learning.

Perceptual variables in the transpostion behavior of children

Abstract Two experiments on transposition behavior in first-grade children are reported. In the first, perceptual pretraining with either 3 stimulus values appearing on the dimension in pretraining or with continuous variation of the dimension was found to significantly facilitate transposition. But identical perceptual pretraining with only 2 stimulus values on the dimension had no effect on transposition, regardless of whether these values were relatively close or distant on the continuum. The second experiment compared 3 modes of stimulus presentation during the transposition test phase: (1) Simultaneous presentation of training and test pairs; (2) alternating presentation of training and test pairs; (3) presentation of the test pair only, as in the customary transposition test procedure. Transposition was maximal in (1), minimal in (3), and intermediate in (2).

Transfer from perceptual pretraining as a function of number of task dimensions

Abstract Children (average age 6 years 7 months) learned an initial discrimination (OL) and a reversal shift (RS) with 1 dimension relevant and either 0, 1, or 2 dimensions irrelevant following pretraining which required Ss to make same-different judgments to stimulus objects varying along the dimensions appearing in the transfer tasks. Pretraining did not affect performance in OL relative to a control condition, and performance degraded as a linear function of number of irrelevant dimensions. In RS, perceptually pretrained and control Ss did not differ under the condition of 0 dimensions irrelevant, but with increasing amounts of irrelevant stimulation the performance of the control Ss deteriorated in the same manner as in OL while the performance of perceptually pretrained Ss was unaltered.

Facilitation of transposition and reversal learning in children by prior perceptual training

Abstract First-grade children who received either perceptual pretraining or the identical perceptual experience plus verbal labeling training were significantly and equally facilitated in performance on a discrimination reversal and a transposition test as compared to nonpretrained children. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for perceptual, attentional and verbal mediation theories of learning.

Transfer from perceptual pretraining as a function of number of stimulus values per dimension

First-grade children who were perceptually pretrained with either three stimulus values or four stimulus values appearing on each dimension in pretraining were significantly facilitated in learning a subsequent discrimination reversal as compared to both nonpretrained Ss and Ss who received identical perceptual pretraining but with only two stimulus values per dimension. These results are discussed in relation to perceptual and attentional models of learning.

Reversals prior to solution of concept identification in children

Abstract The Bower-Trabasso test for noncontinuity processes in simple concept identification was applied in a series of experiments with children. The essential feature of the procedure is that S s are given reversals of cue-reward assignments on every alternate error. Fifth-grade children trained in this manner made the same number of informed errors to criterion as did S s trained without reversals, a finding in keeping with the performance of college S s. A group of kindergarten and first-grade children trained under the presolution reversal procedure made significantly more informed errors to criterion than did controls, and this was true whether or not S s received explicit instructions as to the set of possible cues and the rule of the game. A study of hypothesis behavior in this situation found no difference between age levels in frequency of appropriate hypotheses, but the younger S s exhibited a significantly greater tendency to abandon reinforced hypotheses at the outset of training. This set of experiments suggests certain refinements in mediation theories of discrimination learning; and the overall data are consistent with a response-set interpretation of the age-difference in outcome of presolution reversals.

Some observations of reinforcer preference in children

Proportions of samples of nursery school through fifth-grade children choosing each of a constant set of twelve alternative rewards are reported. These observations on reinforcer preference were incidental to a series of learning experiments conducted over the past four years.