The effect of preexposure to visual stimuli on subsequent discrimination was studied in 17 girls and 23 boys, ages 53 to 61 mo., using a test in which a sample stimulus had to be identified from a set of comparison stimuli. Preexposure significantly facilitated discrimination. This facilitation was more noticeable between stimuli which shared a large proportion of common elements. The results were consistent with an associative theory of the representation of stimuli suggested by McLaren, Kaye, and Mackintosh in 1989, and implications are considered for teaching.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
CantorG. N. (1955) Effects of three types of pretraining on discrimination learning in preschool children. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 46, 248–254.
2.
ChamizoV. D.MackintoshN. J. (1989) Latent learning and latent inhibition in maze discriminations. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 41B, 21–31.
3.
ChannellS.HallG. (1981) Facilitation and retardation of discrimination learning after exposure to the stimuli. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 7, 437–446.
4.
ChengY. P.AllportD. A.MarshallJ. C. (1996) What are the functional orthographic units in Chinese word recognition: The stroke or the stroke pattern?The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49A, 1024–1043.
5.
GibsonE. J.WalkR. D. (1956) The effect of prolonged exposure to visually presented patterns on learning to discriminate similar and different patterns. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 31, 584–587.
6.
HallG. (1991) Perceptual and associative learning. Oxford, UK: Clarendon.
7.
HullC. L. (1920) Quantitative aspects of the evolution of concepts. Psychological Monographs, 28, No. 123.
8.
LubowR. E. (1973) Latent inhibition. Psychological Bulletin, 79, 398–407.
9.
MalloyT. F.EllisH. C. (1970) Attention and cue-producing responses in response-mediated stimulus generalization. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 83, 191–200.
10.
McLaren[. P. L.KayeH.MackintoshN. J. (1989) An associative theory of the representation of stimuli: Applications to perceptual learning and latent inhibition. In MorrisR. G. M. (Ed.), Parallel distributed processing: Implications for psychology and neurobiology. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press. Pp. 102–130.
11.
McLarenI. P. L.LeeversH. J.MackintoshN. J. (1994) Recognition, categorization, and perceptual learning. In UmiltàC.MoscovitchM. (Eds.), Attention and performance XV. Cconscious and nonconscious information process. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pp. 889–909.
12.
NelsonT. M.NilssonT. H.PierceyD. J.JohnsonT.FrascaraJ.DelanoS. S.SoneE. S.BravoM. V. (1999) Improving perception of letters and visual structure of language. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 88, 515–530.
13.
OswaltR. M. (1972) Relationship between level of visual pattern difficulty during rearing and subsequent discrimination in rats. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 5, 195–208.
14.
TolmanE. C.HonzikC. H. (1930) Introduction and removal of reward, and maze performance in rats. University of California Publications in Psychology, 4, 257–275.
15.
TrobalónJ. B.SansaJ.ChamizoV. D.MackintoshN. J. (1991) Perceptual learning in maze discriminations. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 43B, 389–402.
