Third-grade middle-class children performed a size-discrimination task under one of 5 reward conditions (consumable, nonconsumable, token-consumable, token-nonconsumable, token) or a control condition. The reward groups were comparable in performance and markedly superior to the control group. Contrary to expectations, response-contingent nonconsumable rewards were not more distracting than response-contingent consumable rewards nor was the token-reward system for presenting these material rewards less distracting than the response-contingent reinforcement procedure.
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